Gallup Pole

I stumbled across this article in The Smithsonian Magazine.  When the topic is chemistry or economics or local zoning regulations, I scoot right on past it. But when the talk turns to firehouses, you have my undivided.

In the 1800s, firehouses were always built in two stories- sleeping and living quarters upstairs next to the top of the hose tower, where used hoses were hung up to dry, and horses and the horse-drawn pumper downstairs.

They used circular staircases between the two floors because the horses weren't about to climb them to get up and see what was cooking, or ask to be dealt in in the pinochle game.  But at the same time, that made it slow going for the crew to race downstairs and get to the fire.

So, sometime in the 1870s, a firefighter named David Kenyon of Company 21, an all-African-American firehouse in Chicago, had a lightbulb moment.

There happened to be a long pole in the firehouse. It was used to bale hay for the horses, and one time, in order to respond to a call, a fellow firefighter grabbed the pole upstairs and shimmied down.

Ah ha! Put in a permanent pole and cut down the clambering to the first floor!

After Firefighter Kenyon put in the pole, other firefighters thought it was a crazy idea...until they started noticing that Engine 21 was getting to calls well ahead of others. The idea spread to Boston in 1880, and they used a brass pole, which is what came to be the standard. By 1890, your firehouse either had that pole, or you were nowheresville!

There was then, and still is today, a certain competition among fire companies to get to the scene of an emergency rapidly, so they can begin rendering assistance. Certain bragging rights accrue to the crew that "got there first."

However, the Fire Service, a tradition-rich environment of men and women, occasionally comes across the world of law and public policy. Remember when you would see firefighters on the back step of an engine? It's been a while, I know. The explanation is that it was unsafe (obviously) to be hanging on the back of a vehicle racing through traffic, so they extended the cab and the people who used to stand in back of the bus got a seat right up the middle.

Lawyers being as they are, they did not use the term "guys falling off the engine." The term was "involuntary dismount," and I will not share the jokes that went along with that.

Getting rid of poles in fire stations is taking a while longer. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration says poles are the safest way to get down one floor, but of course they use the term "not an approved means of egress."

But some stations still have them, although one-story suburban stations obviously don't.  And there are hose dryers now, so there's no need for the hose tower.  But, for instance, Sean Colby, a lieutenant on Engine 10 in Boston says, “It’s a major part of firefighting. I enjoy using it and believe it’s an iconic tradition we shouldn’t let go.”

Speaking of the word egress, as you know, it means leaving or exiting. People didn't always know that, and P.T. Barnum, carnival huckster first class, found himself with a situation.  People paid to get in his sideshows, and then, they wouldn't leave, and he couldn't jam more people in the tent until some left.  So, he put up a sign by the exit reading "THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS," and people, thinking an egress was an animal or something else to see, hurried through, finding themselves right outside in a hurry, right where Barnum wanted them.