We’ve just scanned in the Hopewell Fire Department 100th Anniversary Booklet (1911 – 2011) (PDF). It’s 87 pages, with extensive coverage and photos on the history of fire companies in Hopewell Borough, plus the Ambulance Corps, Ladies Auxiliary, past and current officers, and fire equipment. The second half also has display ads that provide information on local organizations and businesses.
This joins the earlier Hopewell Fire Department 75th Anniversary booklet (1986) (PDF) on the site (77 pages).
Does anyone have the 50th Anniversary booklet (1961) or other similar historical material that we can scan and share? (The Fire Department website does have the 100th, 75th, and 50th booklets posted – but they are only viewable page by page, and are posted using the obsolete Adobe Flash Player, which already has been disabled by default on most devices, and which will no longer be supported at the end of 2020.)
Thanks to Bob Witkowski for this and other wonderful materials.
Can anyone identify this mystery photo?
This image appears in a photo montage at the front of the 100th Anniversary booklet, before the history section, but the scene does not appear to be from Hopewell or other local towns.
The historical text and photos are repeated from the 75th and 50th Anniversary booklets – but this one unidentified image is new to the 100th.
Mystery solved – The image is from the Wheeling Fire Department, in Wheeling, West Virginia — A city in the northern tip of West Virginia, along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, around 60 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.
The image is shown in posts from December 2015 on the Archiving Wheeling site, a collaborative community project of the Ohio County Public Library, in Wheeling, West Virginia. It is captioned “Old Chemical Engine Company at the “Hope” Company House,” (so there is a “Hope” connection).
Another post describes a major fire of 1917, which lead to improvements for the Wheeling Fire Department, illustrated by a fun set of images of Wheeling’s early motorized fire trucks from the 1925 “History of Wheeling Firefighting.” The image also looks like it comes from the book.
More on Hopewell Valley Fire Companies
Hopewell Borough – History
- Hopewell Borough Fire Companies – Full History Brief (PDF)
- Somerset St. – Rockwell Fire Brigade Brief (c1927) – Full History Brief (PDF)
- Hopewell Valley Fire Departments
- The Confusing Hopewell Firehouse – and Boro Hall and High School (1910)
- Van Doren Lumberyard Fires
Hopewell Borough – Documents & Media
- Hopewell Fire Department 100th Anniversary Booklet – and Mystery Photo
- Hopewell Fire Department 75th Anniversary Booklet – and 50th Anniversary
- Hopewell Parade Videos 1946 – 1948 – Memorial Day & 1948 Firemen’s videos
