Fire Depatment, Batavia, N.Y. 7

Fire Depatment, Batavia, N.Y. 7

A fire company poses with its equipment in front of the city fire house. The men of the Batavia City Fire Department, wearing their uniforms, accompanied by the company's dog, pose proudly in their fire trucks in front of their firehouse. Three are well-kept gas-powered vehicles, including a pumper, and a ladder truck, indicating a post-1906 date. At the left a man in civilian dress sits in the driver's seat of a horse-drawn trailer, possibly for carrying long ladders. The brick station house, an Italianate structure with a lookout tower, is fitted with two large bays for the fire trucks, and space for an office and social events. This outfit looks professional and well-organized, which became increasingly the norm as fire protection services, usually all volunteer-staffed, became more standardized. As suggested in this image, a measure of a city's pride was in the quality and reputation of its fire company, as well as other civic entities. This is one of a series of images made in upstate New York state by one of the three Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company photographers assigned to New England or upstate New York. The glass plates would be sent back to Belfast, Maine, and processed into postcards at the printing plant on High Street.