White Chicagoans mocked the first Black fire crew in 1872, ‘but the levity was soon succeeded by admiration’
A photograph of the first Black fire company, Engine 21, in 1873 is on display at the African American Firefighters Museum in Chicago, Feb. 16, 2022.
Even if city officials hadn’t foreseen that a small measure of integration would be anathema to white Chicagoans, they would have realized that the day after Engine 21 with its Black crew was assigned to May Street, near the site of the previous year’s fire. A drawing shows Engine 21 responding to a call using the recently invented fire pole, published in the March 11, 1888, Chicago Tribune.
The credit is due to Mayor Joseph Medill, says Dekalb Walcott, Jr, author of “Black Heroes of Fire,” an account of Engine 21. He thought the men “were good drivers and horsemen, generally, but not good firemen,” the Tribune reported. “There was no lack of good and experienced firemen in the city and the existence of this company kept just so many efficient men out of the force,” Bragg insisted.
Not only did Engine 21 consistently get excellent reviews, but it added a tool to a fireman’s kit that quickened the response time of all companies. A Tribune reporter was shown the prototype by Paine, the former slave, on a visit to Engine 21′s quarters in 1888. It worked, and the Fire Department’s annual report for 1878 noted that “sliding poles” were being installed in firehouses across the city, Walcott reports. The later ones were made of brass, as sliding down a wooden one meant a fireman sometimes took a sliver with him.
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