By Tracy Gupton
Columbia Historical Museum
Although the City of West Columbia’s Volunteer Fire Department has been around for going on 83 years, it’s difficult to believe our community relied on the assistance of neighboring towns for so long. It wasn’t until 1940 that city leaders demanded West Columbia take the necessary strides to get the ball rolling to create its own fire-fighting unit.
Of course, that was much too late to save my great-grandfather’s store in East Columbia. A December 31, 1906, Houston Post story detailed the mass destruction of buildings along the western banks of the Brazos River: “A midnight blaze at Columbia destroyed several buildings. The townspeople of Columbia were awakened last night by pistol shots and the ringing of bells. It was discovered that a fire had started in Sam Gupton’s meat market.
“Soon the building was in flames and the warehouse located next to it, the largest on Front Street in Columbia, belonging to W.R. Nash and T.L. Smith, was also claimed by the flames,” The Post story revealed. “A cold drink stand owned by Cornelius Giesecke was burned down. The fire was eventually checked when a store, also owned by Giesecke, halted the spread of the fire due to the fact the store was brick veneer and covered with galvanized roofing.”
Sam Gupton is pictured behind the counter at right with his son, S.M. “Buff” Gupton, at left, in this old photo taken at Gupton’s Meat Market and Store in East Columbia on the Brazos River. A fire started in this store in 1906 that spread rapidly in late December.
Without a fire department of any kind in 1906, residents of East Columbia had to carry buckets of river water up the bank of the Brazos to douse the flames and use the water in horse troughs. Sam Gupton operated a small store and meat market in old East Columbia with the help of several of his sons. My grandfather, Samuel Morris “Buff” Gupton, worked with his father, both in the East Columbia store and later in a store in West Columbia on South 16th Street near East Brazos Avenue.
When the big oil boom erupted around West Columbia just prior to 1920, many of the businesses that had once thrived from the river traffic on the Brazos in East Columbia relocated a few miles away to the soon-to-be bustling city of West Columbia. I’m assuming my grandfather and his dad rebuilt their store after the devastating fire of 1906 in East Columbia. But it was another big fire in West Columbia 34 years later that set the stage for the creation of a volunteer fire department in The Republic of Texas’s first capitol city.
On a Monday, June 3, 1940, the Wright Motor Company garage and sales room erupted into flames, endangering much of the West Columbia downtown area. Roy Wright’s auto sales business was located where the Margarita Jones restaurant is now.
Like with the 1906 fire in East Columbia, a bucket brigade was improvised in downtown West Columbia just before noon on that hot summer day in 1940 while awaiting the arrival of the fire departments from Angleton and Bay City. By 1 p.m. that day 83 years ago the Wright Motor Company blaze was finally under control. But it was the fourth such fire in as many months in West Columbia. Local residents and business owners had seen enough of their town having to rely on the assistance of neighboring city’s fire departments.
Later that month of June 1940, the West Columbia City Council appointed Cecil Autry, service manager for the Wright Motor Company at the time, as our community’s first official fire chief. Autry had been a member of the San Marcos Fire Department before moving to West Columbia.
The West Columbia Junior Chamber of Commerce enthusiastically pledged their support in getting a volunteer fire department up and running. Residents and businesses of the community also pitched in with donations to help pay for the necessary fire-fighting equipment.
Autry recruited 18 men to serve as volunteer firemen while the town eagerly awaited the arrival of its first fire truck. Those inaugural volunteers in the WCVFD were E.B. McCulley, first assistant chief; Bob Westmoreland, second assistant chief; Hardin Reed, secretary-treasurer; drivers Roy Gray, Roy Douthard and R.J. Higgins; Bob Barta, E.A. Bell, Arval Benge, Dr. W.M. Greenwood, Hall Griggs, R.E. Lee Jr., Blair McCulley, Roy Powers, Edmund Schick, M.L. “Buster” Waugh, Marcus Weems and my great-uncle, H.J. “Dude” Gupton.
O.W. “Pat” Pond was mayor of West Columbia in 1940 when the volunteer fire department was formed. The November 15, 1940, edition of The West Columbia Light newspaper announced the arrival of the department’s first fire truck in its lead story. Other stories dotting the front page in that issue of The Light included reporting that a new fire hydrant would be installed in a new main water line in West Columbia from the water tank owned by T.M. Smith to the side of Maggie’s Café, Reverend L. Wratton replaced Reverend Thomas M. Price as pastor of Columbia United Methodist Church, County Commissioner E.H. Mays announced plans to build a city jail in West Columbia, and Fire Chief Autry’s wife Charlotte entertained friends with a bridge luncheon at her home. Such was front page news in November 1940.
Oh, and there also was a story about the home of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Ashley burning to the ground on the outskirts of town before the new fire truck had arrived.
The fire truck, which cost the city around $4,500, arrived at Roy Wright’s Chevrolet dealership on Monday morning, November 11, 1940, and was taken for a spin around town with Chief Autry at the wheel. It then stopped at Dooley Galloway’s First Capitol Bank building where the Columbia Historical Museum is now for a demonstration for the public.
A second fire truck was acquired in 1947 and a pumper truck was purchased by the city in 1955. It took all the fire trucks and volunteers to fight the disastrous blaze that destroyed most of West Columbia High School on February 2, 1959. Though aided by 10 neighboring fire departments, the school was labeled a “total loss” by insurers. Within 10 minutes of the West Columbia Fire Department’s arrival on the scene, the building was completely engulfed in flames.
Louis Bertram, the school’s janitor, discovered the fire which was believed to be caused by a defective heater in principal Charles Worley’s office at about 7 a.m. While fighting the fire at the school, located between East Bernard and Clay streets (where Heritage Hall is now), a massive explosion blew out multiple windows on the second floor.
One volunteer fireman who did not join the others to battle the school blaze was Quinton William Dearing, who died a month earlier from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. He was only 41 and the first of West Columbia’s volunteer firemen to die.
A February 5, 1959, front page story in The Angleton Times estimated the cost of damages from the school blaze at $300,000 and reported that the more than 400 high school students who had been attending the campus were going to be taught in makeshift classrooms at the First Baptist Church and St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in West Columbia. The story said the gymnasium, auditorium and band hall were not damaged by the 1959 fire so they could still be used. And the junior high annex was saved by firefighters.
The Times story said that more than 150 firemen from all over Brazoria County helped fight the school fire. An earlier fire on August 20, 1943, destroyed the West Columbia school house at the same location when all 12 grades attended the two-story building. Only junior high and high school classes were held at the school at the time of the 1959 blaze.
In October 2010 the West Columbia Volunteer Fire Department published a 70th Anniversary Commemorative Book compiled by Wesley W. Chafin. Jimmy D. Chafin, WCVFD fire chief in 2010, wrote that, “You cannot tell the complete story of West Columbia without understanding the fire department’s unique role. We have one purpose: to serve the community we love – and we take it very seriously.”
The first fire truck was housed at Roy Wright’s Chevrolet dealership, which seemed fitting since the fire at Wright’s Chevrolet in 1940 was the spark that ignited the West Columbia community to action in creating the town’s volunteer fire department. In 1941 the city council approved construction of a new city hall, fire station and city jail.
A bond election passed by the voters in West Columbia in February 1972 led to the construction of the city’s current fire station next door to the police station on Clay Street. And the past 50-plus years have witnessed numerous changes in faces of volunteer firemen and auxiliary members, but former Fire Chief Jimmy Chafin’s words still ring true: “We have one purpose: to serve the community we love.”
Pay a visit to the Columbia Historical Museum at 247 East Brazos Avenue in downtown West Columbia to see the West Columbia Volunteer Fire Department exhibit, as well as the many other historical items on display. The museum and the historic Rosenwald School are open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.
Viewers of our museum website are encouraged to leave comments beneath the many stories in “The Vault of Texas History” tab at the top of the website home page.