Lannon History Index

Lannon Fire Department

    When Lannon celebrated its' 50th birthday in 1980, the village fire department was celebrating its' 64th year. The Lannon Volunteer Fire Company was organized in 1916. It succeeded the "Bucket brigade", men who fought fires with pails and farmers' milk buckets.

    The original fire department had 17 members. Through the efforts of Charlie Horn, owner of the present Dugout tavern, the volunteer fire company was chartered with Wisconsin in 1917.

    While the present department (in 1980) has six trucks and two ambulances, originally, it had one hand-drawn cart. The two-wheel cart carried two 35 gallon chemical tanks and a 15 foot hose, with an opening of about an inch and a half in diameter. It took four men to push and pull it. The cart was kept in a garage at 20152 Main St. which served as the original firehouse and village board meeting place at times.    

    It wasn't very easy to effectively fight fires in the early years of the Lannon Volunteer Fire Company. The problems were numerous. Sometimes they would use a chemical tank faster than the other tank could be refilled. The tank lasted only for four or five minutes, then you had to add soda ash, sulfuric acid and 35 gallons of water to it.

    Sometimes the firefighters had to resort to the tactics of the "bucket brigade". The flames would crawl up a wall and there wasn't any ladders to get up that high. There wasn't equipment to go into smoke-filled rooms either. In fact, the firemen wore whatever they had on.

    Local blacksmiths, Otto and Herman Joecks, hand built the first ladder truck. That truck was usually pulled by hand too. It was made of a steel frame and buggy wheels. The frame was about 16 feet long and it carried six ladders that could extend about 30 feet.

    A Cadillac was Lannon's first motorized fire truck. The next piece of equipment was a 1929 Pirsch "Custom" pumper.

    The Department in 1980 has two 750 GPM pumpers, one 500 GPM pumper, two ambulances, one 2600 Gallon Capacity tank truck, and one utility vehicle.

    Until January, 1958, the Department was self-supporting by holding picnics, dances, etc. Since that time, the Department has been assisted financially by the Village of Lannon.

    Lannon has had 9+ Fire Chiefs since 1916:

    * William Miller lived directly across the street from the fire house garage.

Bob Chvosta served for 1 1/2 yrs.

1. Syd Gissal  and Godfrey (Shupe) DeCristofaro held positions in 1970.