The Champlin Boy Scout Reservation is located at 223 Scituate Avenue in Cranston. Although not actually a volunteer fire company, they did maintain a brush-truck designated as Engine 18 to put out the occasional brush fire. As far as it’s known, the truck was never called into service outside the reservation. …
Author: jim
Auburn Fire Company
It’s possible that the Auburn Fire Company originated as the Mashpaug Fire Company in the 1890s, or the Mashpaug Fire Co. was absorbed by the Auburn Fire Co. If anyone knows the answer, please contact the museum. As a point of fact, there were those who attempted to organize a…
Mashapaug Fire Company
Click on images to enlarge. The earliest documentation of the Mashapaug Fire Company was found in a news snippet dated December 23, 1892, which appeared in the now defunct Olneyville Times commending the company for their work at a recent fire on Garden Street in Auburn. It is therefore surmised that…
Cranston Print Works
The A. & W. Sprague Manufacturing Company was located where the Cranston Print Works is today. It was a cotton manufacturing company owned by the Sprague Family of Cranston, and was in business as early as 1862. It is unknown if this was a a volunteer fire company, or a private concern established…
Cranston Fire Company
Click on images to enlarge. The Cranston Volunteer Fire Company was established in circa 1897-98 and originally occupied a building on Pine Street near Dyer Avenue which it rented from the Cranston Print Works. The fire company’s first fire engine was a second-hand apparatus from the Combination Ladder Company, (Presumably of…
East Arlington Fire Company
Very little is known about the former East Arlington Volunteer Fire Company, which operated separate and apart from the Arlington Volunteer Fire Company. The company was organized sometime in 1916, and began with a hose wagon. By September of that year the organization was still searching for a suitable lot with…
Eden Park Fire Company
Click on images to enlarge. The Eden Park Fire Company was established in October of 1898. A newspaper article which appeared in The Providence News on October 15, 1898, stated in part: “The residents of the Eden Park District have formed a fire company to be known as the Eden…
Pocasset Fire Company
Click on images to enlarge. The Pocasset Fire Company, can trace its roots to June of 1895 when it was incorporated as “The Pocasset Hose Company”, with forty charter members. On November 29, 1895, the name was changed to “The Pocasset Fire Engine Company”, which was later shortened to “The Pocasset Fire Company”. …
Pawtuxet Fire Company
Click on images to enlarge. The Pawtuxet Volunteer Fire Company was organized on February 16, 1891, making it the first volunteer fire company to be established in the city. In its early days, it was also referred to in newspapers as “Volunteer Fire Company No. 1” The Pawtuxet fire station…
Edgewood Fire Company
Click on images to enlarge. The Edgewood Volunteer Fire Company, not to be confused with the Pawtuxet Volunteer Fire Company which was also located in Edgewood, was formally organized on October 24, 1904. However, an unnamed newspaper article from a scrap book dated October 15, 1906 indicates that the company began “several years”…