PEORIA, Ill. – 150 years of service to the community is being celebrated by the Peoria Fire Department.
The department hosted an open house on Tuesday to mark the occasion, with speeches, tours, and artifacts from the past on display.
The department was established on March 9th, 1875 when the city council formally established a paid, career fire department. Orrin Norton was the first Fire Chief
Current Fire Chief Shawn Sollberger says the history of the department goes back further than that. The city says the roots of the Peoria Fire Department goes back to 18-45 when the first volunteer firefighters were recognized.
“When you think of any fire department across this whole world, there was not one that we could find that didn’t start as a volunteer agency in the early 1800’s and 1900’s,” Sollberger said.
Sollberger says some of the department’s more significant events in its history include the creation of the dive team after the McClugage Bridge in 2000, and the Howard Johnson hotel fire. Other events cited by the city include the Woolmer’s Distillery explosion and fire in 1881 that killed 11 people, the 1959 Arion Hotel fire where four people died, and the 1987 Lehmann Building fire.
Overall, Sollberger says the department’s legacy are those firefighters who serve in its ranks.
“We’ve always been a strong, significant, interior fighting fire department, and what does that mean to the community is that we take an oath to protect life and property, and we’re very proud of that,” Sollberger said.
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