AH HA: We’ve enjoyed bringing you some history of Bradford courtesy of information from Curly Walters. As we were reading it, we had our suspicions that the author of the facts was Sally Costik, curator of Bradford Landmark Society.

We were right.

Sally dropped us an email saying the information appeared in the January 1999 Bradford Landmark Society newsletter, “The Inkwell.”

“Talk about déjà vu!” Sally said. “Glad to see that our newsletter is still out there and people enjoy it so much.”

Sally supplemented that long-ago piece for us, adding some additional information on volunteer fire companies in Bradford.

“One must admire these men who selflessly volunteered to fight those awful early fires, leaping to action when the town fire bell rang,” she said. We agree.

“The first fire company was formed on Aug. 2, 1877. Called the F.S. Johnson Hose Company, it was named after the Honorable Frank Spencer Johnson, prominent oil man, politician, and postmaster of Bradford under President William H. Harrison.

“The second fire company, the Era Hook & Ladder, was formed in June 1878. Collecting their own money, the fire men purchased the first hook and ladder truck in the city.

“The third fire company, the Whitney Hose, was formed Nov. 12, 1878.  An independent, it was formed by employees of the Whitney & Wheeler, at that time, one of the largest oil producers in the country and owners of the first Tuna Valley Bank, the first bank in Bradford. (Side note: the Bank building on the Crook Farm is a replica of this first bank). Their initial equipment consists of an old pumper from the Johnson Hose Co. and 500 feet of rubber hose.

“The fourth fire company, the Citizen Hose, was formed on Nov. 27, 1878 by a young group of men originally from Buffalo, N.Y. Their first ‘fire truck’ is a sleigh, the runners of which were made of bent pipe, two inches in diameter.”

We’ll share some more on local fire companies in another column. Stay tuned.