Center Fire Station

The Center Fire Station, later called the Central Fire Station, was the brick firehouse of Billerica Center from 1918 to 1986. It stood on the west side of Boston Road just south of the Common, on a lot of 8,260 square feet that is still town land at 407 Boston Road. The building was taken down in 2009.

The lot was the southern part of a half acre at the corner of the roads to Boston and Concord. Stephen Parker sold that half acre, "bounding on the common", "together with all the buildings thereon standing", to William Richardson for $1,500 in 1812, and William sold it two years later to his brother Francis Richardson. It stayed with Francis until his death in 1860, and in 1861 the other heirs quitclaimed it to his daughter Mary L. Dickinson. By 1894 the part south of the corner was a lot of 15,737 square feet with buildings on it. After Mrs. Dickinson died in 1900 her sons sold that lot to Edward A. King, carpenter, builder and hardware dealer, whose block on the north part of it later became Martin's Block.

Before 1918 the fire company at the Centre worked from an engine house and stable that the town had built in 1894 (Smith Brothers did the work for $1,050.77), and its apparatus was drawn by horses hired when an alarm came in. At the annual meeting of March 1915 the town voted $5,000 "for the purpose of buying land and building a fireproof fire station, to be located at Billerica Centre", and appointed Charles A. Wright, Elmer E. Cole and Ralph E. Manning to choose a site and get plans. Their report brought plans from Henry L. Rourke, an architect of Lowell, for a building 62 feet long and 44 feet 4 inches wide that "will readily accomodate four pieces of apparatus side by side", with walls of water struck brick, a gravel roof, a granolithic floor and a cellar for the heating plant and chemicals, at about $6,200 with the land. They wanted a lot of G. E. Stearns on River Street, away from the electric car tracks, and the town voted to take it by eminent domain, but in 1916 it dropped the taking and called for "other plans for the location of a Fire Station".

In 1917 a committee of Ralph E. Manning, Prescott L. Pasho and Martin Conway reported that horses "that can be depended upon at the time of the fire" could no longer be hired and urged a motor truck carrying chemical tanks and a rotary pump, adding that "a station of proper construction and equipment" had to be ready for it. The annual meeting voted $5,700 for the truck and gave a committee of Ralph E. Manning, John A. Richardson and Ernest N. Bartlett the power to buy a site and build the station with the $7,400 then available. A special meeting on September 17, 1917 turned down two lots offered by Ernest C. Towle on Concord Road. A month later, on October 19, 1917, Edward A. King sold the town the south part of his lot, 60.17 feet on Boston Road and 144.77 feet deep, "shown on a plan of land entitled 'Fire Station Lot, Billerica Center, Mass.'" that Smith and Brooks of Lowell had surveyed on September 26. Merton L. Fisk released the lot from his mortgage on King's land a minute before the deed was recorded. The land cost $1,050.

Work began in the fall of 1917 and the station was finished in 1918. The town's accounts show $2,894.59 spent in 1917 (survey, land, architect and a first payment to the contractor) and $7,877.86 in 1918, including a general contract of $6,288.56 and separate heating and plumbing contracts, about $10,770 in all; the reports do not name the builder. When it was done the fire alarm, which had been worked from the telephone office since 1915, was moved into the station, and on August 15, 1918 Edward Thommen went on duty as its first permanent man, to keep the station and drive the truck. Townspeople reporting a fire were told to "telephone the Fire Station, 22-5". An insurance survey of 1919 described "a one-story brick building, plastic slate roof, concrete floor, steel floor beams protected with concrete", with a steam heating plant in the basement and sleeping quarters off the apparatus floor. It housed an American La France combination pump, chemical and hose wagon, a horse drawn ladder truck and the chief's car, and the Gamewell fire alarm headquarters.

The station became the headquarters of Engine Company 1 and Ladder Company 1 as the department added permanent men. In 1950 it held a 1941 Mack 750 gallon pumper, a 1939 Mack combination, a 1926 Maxim ladder truck, a 1946 Ford pick-up with a portable pump, an emergency boat and the chief's car, and the chief warned that it "was built in 1918 for an all-call fire department" and was "much too small". Articles to widen its doors came before the town in 1952 and 1953, and a committee to find a site for a new Center station was named in 1954. In 1956 the chief listed one toilet for the whole crew, three men sleeping in a room barely large enough for two, no room for the men off duty, doors too small for the trucks, and equipment kept in a neighboring building the town did not own.

A committee reported in 1983 that "the floor is collapsing, the roof is constantly leaking" and recommended moving the station into the empty Howe High School. The town voted $400,000 for the conversion in 1984 and more in 1986, and in November 1986 the department moved to its new Central Fire Headquarters at 8 Good Street, in the old school's gymnasium and shop wing, refurbished for $853,000. At the spring town meeting of 1987 a motion to demolish the old station and keep the land as open space failed, and the meeting voted instead to sell "the Central Fire Station and the land it is on" toward turning the Howe building into a town hall. The fall town meeting of 1988 rescinded the sale, 89 to 31, and the building stood empty for twenty more years. In October 2008 the town voted $40,000 for asbestos and hazardous waste removal and the "demolition of the Old Central Fire Station located at 407 Boston Road", with a committee to plan the reuse of the land. The work was done by June 30, 2009 for about $20,700, and the unspent balance went to removing the fuel tank at the new Central station.

The lot was not sold. The six-unit Brentwood Arms condominium built in 1988 stands on the separate Martin's Block lot to the north, and the 0.19 acre fire station lot remains town property, still held under Edward A. King's deed of 1917.

References

1. Billerica assessor: 407 Boston Rd, parcel 61-46-0, Town of Billerica (Old Central Fire Dept), 0.19 acre, no building, deed 579-382
2. Billerica town report 1895: Engine House account, Smith Bros. labor $1,050.77; the stable and engine house, Billerica Centre
3. Billerica town report 1915: annual meeting Art. 38, $5,000 to buy land and build a fireproof fire station at Billerica Centre; building committee Wright, Cole, Manning
4. Billerica town report 1915: report of the committee on the fire station, plans by Henry L. Rourke, architect, Lowell; Stearns lot on River Street
5. Billerica town report 1916: River Street taking dismissed, other plans for the location of a fire station
6. Billerica town report 1917: fire truck committee report urging a motor truck and a new fire station
7. Billerica town report 1917: Art. 19 auto fire truck $5,700; Art. 34 committee to purchase a site and build a fire station ($7,400)
8. Billerica town report 1917: special town meeting Sept. 17, 1917, Towle lots on Concord Road rejected
9. Billerica town report 1917: Fireproof Fire Station account (survey, land $1,050, contractor, architect, water)
10. Billerica town report 1918: fire engineers on the completion of the new Fire Station at the Centre, fire alarm moved, first permanent man
11. Billerica town report 1918: Fire Station account, general contract $6,288.56, total $7,877.86
12. Billerica town report 1919: New England Insurance Exchange survey, the Central fire station on Boston Road and its apparatus
13. Billerica town report 1950: Central Station apparatus; built in 1918 for an all-call fire department, much too small
14. Billerica town report 1956: fire chief on conditions in the Center Station
15. Billerica town report 1983: Central Fire Station Committee report recommending the Howe School
16. Billerica town report 1986: new Central Fire Headquarters on Good Street opened November 1986, $853,000
17. Billerica town report 1987: Spring Town Meeting Art. 33, vote to sell the Central Fire Station and its land
18. Billerica town report 1988: Fall Town Meeting Art. 17 rescinds the vote to sell the Central Fire Station
19. Billerica town report 2009: Art. 15 of the October 2008 Fall Town Meeting, $40,000 for demolition of the Old Central Fire Station, 407 Boston Road, and a reuse committee
20. Billerica town report 2009: Central Fire Station Demo account, $20,696 spent by June 30, 2009

Deed References Expand all

Recorded is Book/Page at the Middlesex North Registry of Deeds unless noted.