How Boulder Creek Got Its Fire Department, and Why Nobody Agrees How Old It Is
Ask when the Boulder Creek Volunteer Fire Department was founded and you can get three answers, all from serious sources. The department says 1892. The earliest paperwork anyone has found is dated December 1894. A 1940 retrospective said the volunteer department then in place resulted from a 1931 reorganization.
None of those is wrong. They describe different things, and once you lay the record end to end, the disagreement stops being confusing and starts being the story.
Start with what is certain: there was nothing in July 1891
The Santa Cruz Surf's report on the fire that destroyed the town's business district on July 16, 1891 explains why the town could only watch:
Boulder is well supplied with water for domestic use, but lacking in power for fire purposes. Without any organized fire company and practically without water, there was nothing possible to do but to let the fire take its course.
As of July 16, 1891, Boulder Creek had no fire company. Any founding date earlier than that is ruled out.
Then the 1940 account says why one appeared
At the dedication of the new fire house in May 1940, the Santa Cruz Sentinel looked back at how the department began:
But it was fire, the uncontrolled outburst of 1891, which burned off a solid block of buildings and threatened the whole village, which brought about the fire department. Yesterday the first fire-fighting equipment, an old hose cart donated by R. C. Kirby of Santa Cruz, was exhibited along with the modern La France and old Ford outfit of the present department.
The 1940 retrospective places the department's origin after the 1891 fire and identifies its first apparatus as a secondhand hose cart donated by R. C. Kirby of Santa Cruz. It was written 49 years after the fire, so its details remain a recollection rather than a contemporary account.
The earliest hard document is December 1894
On December 11, 1894 the Sacramento Daily Union reported articles of incorporation filed with the California Secretary of State for the Boulder Creek Hose Company Building Association, with a principal place of business at Boulder Creek and capital stock of $5,000. Its seven directors were B. G. Hollenbeck, Frank Waters, M. C. Sarmento, O. L. McAbee, F. A. Middleton, Hartman and W. Allen.
Four of the seven directors had been burned out three years earlier. Sarmento lost $4,000, the largest single loss of the night. McAbee Bros. lost a stable and a residence. Dougherty & Middleton lost a blacksmith shop and took damage to the one store that survived. Hollenbeck lost furniture. The railroad depot stood behind the surviving Dougherty and Middleton store, and local historian Lisa Robinson places today's fire department on that store site (The San Lorenzo Valley, p. 40).
The incorporated body was a building association, formed to own and finance a building for a company. December 1894 is therefore the earliest surviving paperwork, not necessarily the company's first day.
What the record can and cannot say about 1892
The window is therefore July 1891 to December 1894, and the department's own date of 1892 sits inside it.
The insurance maps bracket it from both sides without closing it:
| Source | Date | What it records |
|---|---|---|
| Santa Cruz Surf | July 1891 | "without any organized fire company" |
| Sanborn map | June 1892 | "No Steam & No Hand Engines. No Independent Hose Carts." Water facilities "Not Good" |
| Secretary of State | December 1894 | Hose Company Building Association incorporated, $5,000 |
| Evening Sentinel | March 1897 | "the Boulder Creek fire boys will have a new 700 pound fire bell" |
| Sanborn map | June 1897 | "Volunteer Co., 30 men. 1 Hose Cart. 400' Cotton, rubber-lined Hose," nine hydrants |
The 1892 map records no apparatus. That does not rule out an unequipped volunteer group, but it does not establish one either. A department was organized sometime between the fire of July 1891 and the end of 1894; BCFD gives 1892 as its founding year. Boulder Creek did not have its own newspaper until the Mountain Echo began in October 1896, and no contemporary founding notice has surfaced.
The bell a president rang
By 1895 the outfit is being called Boulder Creek Hose Company No. 1, and in June of that year it held an entertainment at Middleton's Hall. In 1898 a kitchen fire is reported in a residence "adjoining the Boulder Creek hose company, known as the Swamp House." On July 4, 1899 the company marched in the town's Independence Day parade alongside the Ben Lomond brass band, a Boys' Brigade, a Girls' Drill Corps and both baseball teams.
Somewhere in there the town acquired the strangest object in its history.
The Evening News of May 17, 1940 explains the name of the McKinley Bell: it was called that because President William McKinley set it ringing electrically, from Washington, D.C., to open the Golden Jubilee Fair at the Mechanics' Pavilion in San Francisco. The paper thought that was probably the first time electricity was ever used to ring a bell to open a fair.
On the authority of a letter from the late J. H. Aram to R. Leslie Hall, written at Mountain View on April 21, 1929, the bell was bought at the close of the fair by a San Francisco firm and purchased from them by the old Boulder Creek Hose Company in August 1898. It hung over the old firemen's hall for years, calling the town to fires and announcing special occasions. By 1940 it was sitting in a shed behind the new fire house, waiting for a campanile.
The fair ran from January into March 1898, despite the 1940 article's reference to "the winter of 1897." A January 29, 1898 report confirms that McKinley's signal set the Mechanics' Pavilion bells ringing, including fifty taps on the Golden Jubilee bell. The claim that Boulder Creek later acquired that same bell rests on the 1929 letter quoted in 1940.
The McKinley Bell was separate from the 700-pound bell delivered to the fire company in March 1897. The 1940 scan also leaves the San Francisco seller's name uncertain, so it is omitted here.
1923, 1931, 1935, 1940
The rest of the line is easier to follow.
January 1923. The fire committees of the Boulder Creek Improvement Club and the Ben Lomond Improvement Club met jointly and designated the territory to be protected as the San Lorenzo Valley Fire District, covering Boulder Creek and its neighborhoods, Brookdale, Ben Lomond, Felton and Mount Hermon. The 1894 building association was still going at that point, 29 years old.
1931. The 1931 reorganization explains why later accounts use that year. The Evening News of May 17, 1940 states it plainly:
The Present Boulder Creek Volunteer Fire Department resulted from re-organization which took place in 1931.
It then quotes the minutes. The meeting was called to order by temporary chairman F. O. Moody and elected Frank Clement president, R. Bonetti vice-president, Ernest Locatelli treasurer, Phil Hartman secretary, and Arthur Waters fire chief.
The word doing the work there is re-organization. In 1940, the paper said the volunteer department then in place resulted from a 1931 reorganization. BCFD now gives 1892 as the volunteer department's founding year and 1923 as the legal district's formation year; the 1931 date describes a later reorganization.
1935. The town siren is in use, summoning members of the volunteer fire department.
May 18, 1940. The $13,000 fire house is dedicated before a reported crowd of 4,000.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was the Boulder Creek Volunteer Fire Department founded?
Between July 1891 and December 1894. The Santa Cruz Surf states there was no organized fire company on the night of the July 1891 fire, and the Hose Company Building Association incorporated in December 1894. The department gives 1892 as its founding year; it falls inside that window but is not independently proved by a contemporary founding notice.
Why do some sources say 1931?
A 1940 history said the volunteer department then in place resulted from a 1931 reorganization. BCFD gives 1892 as its founding year and 1923 as the legal district's formation year.
What was the department's first fire engine?
A secondhand hose cart, donated by R. C. Kirby of Santa Cruz. It was still around in 1940 and was displayed at the fire house dedication alongside the department's American LaFrance engine.
What is the McKinley Bell?
Boulder Creek's old fire bell, bought by the Hose Company in August 1898. It got its name because President William McKinley was said to have set it ringing electrically from Washington, D.C. to open California's Golden Jubilee fair in San Francisco in January 1898, before the bell ever came to Boulder Creek. A contemporary 1898 report confirms the fair's remote bell-ringing, but the claim that Boulder Creek later acquired that same bell comes from a 1929 letter quoted in 1940.
Where can I support the fire department now?
The department's two big community fundraisers are the crab feed in late winter and the summer BBQ and dance.
If the department holds minute books, rosters, or a past-presidents list from the early 1890s, those records may narrow the founding date. We would be glad to help transcribe them.
Sources
- Sacramento Daily Union, 11 December 1894
- Evening Sentinel, 24 March 1897, page 3
- Santa Cruz Evening News, 17 May 1940, page 7
- Santa Cruz Sentinel, 19 May 1940, page 8
- Sanborn fire insurance map, Boulder Creek, June 1892
- Sanborn fire insurance map, Boulder Creek, June 1897
- Sanborn fire insurance map, Boulder Creek, July 1908
- Santa Cruz Surf, 17 July 1891, page 3
- Boulder Creek Fire Protection District, department history
- San Francisco Call, 29 January 1898
Links checked 16 August 2026.
