Twenty-six Years as Chief

Twenty-six Years as Chief

1921年6月1日,亨利·梅耶的消防管理artment of Bloomington, Ill., rounded out forty years of service in the fire department of that city and twenty-six years as chief. When Henry Mayer first became a member of the fire-fighting forces of Bloomington in 1881 these consisted of ten men and employees of three shops in the city. These men for the most part were smiths and machinists and at the alarm of fire left their work and ran to the firehouse, mounted the horse-drawn apparatus and drove to the fire. In addition to his duties as a fire fighter, Henry Mayer was also the department machinist in those early days of crude fire fighting apparatus and he it was who spent his spare moments tinkering at the vitals of the old steamer, setting the steel tires on the old hosecart and the thousand and one odd jobs which became necessary to keep the equipment functioning properly. And for all this service he and every member of the department, drew “ten dollars a month and a place to sleep.”

The first paid department was established in 1887 and Henry Mayer joined it at No. 1 fire house. The members of this department were on duty twenty-four hours every day and in addition to fighting fires were required to sprinkle the streets during the day-light hours. They received a salary of $60 a month. In 1895 Mayor Heafer appointed Mr. Mayer as chief of fire department, which position he has held ever since. Referring to his work in the department Chief Mayer said: “The old-time fire fighter is a thing of the past. We used to think that our duty was done when we had extinguished a fire—now we know that, in nine cases out of ten, our duty should have been to have prevented that fire. With this end in view, we have succeeded in cutting down fire losses until today Bloomington stands near the head of the honor list for small fire losses maintained by the National Board of Fire Underwriters. We have realized that our duty consists in removing every possible fire hazard and that there is more glory in a report showing few fires per year than in one showing many fires extinguished. We used to have fires in the mines sometimes which we had to fight as long as three weeks until the workmen could seal the rooms where they started. They were always difficult, but there was seldom anything about them—just plain hard work.