Fire Station No. 18 (demolished) Improvements – Birmingham AL

Description

Before Pratt City was annexed into Birmingham, the independent municipality was protected by three volunteer firefighting companies, the first of which was organized by Mayor Ephraim Hudnall around 1900. After 1910 the Birmingham Fire Department took over the Pratt City station as its Station No. 18. In June 1912 the station was the last of Birmingham’s 19 fire companies to be equipped with a Seagrave “automobile hose wagon”. Medal of Honor recipient Kelly Ingram was a firefighter at Station 18 for four years before his re-enlistment in the U.S. Navy during World War I. In 1960 the old station at 812 2nd Street Pratt was equipped with one 500-gallon pumper truck. The station was replaced with a new fire station in 1961 that was badly damaged by a 2011 tornado.

This station was one of 23 fire stations that were fixed up under a CWA Birmingham Public Buildings 37-C-715 project. It was designated Class “A”, “those needing general minor repairs, having sufficient sound value left in them to justify a thorough repairing, on which buildings was included painting inside and outside where needed, general carpentry repairs, including doors, windows and repairs to floors, or new floors; general repairs to masonry work and plaster or stucco, repairs to roof and sheet metal work, or new roof and sheet metal work installed. Plumbing, heating and wiring were put in good state of repair, and all minor changes such as moving partitions, or relocation of doors or windows were made.” The report estimated the project would last 5 weeks.