Men organize companies, buy equipment to fight the town’s biggest blazes

Was it a lighted cigar tossed by a member departing the April 29, 1886 Good Templars’ meeting at their rooms that caused the village’s worst and most destructive fire?

At that time, the west side of Knowersville’s Church Street (now Altamont’s Maple Avenue) was lined with businesses: a tinsmith and hardware store, shoemaker, drug store, blacksmith, woodworking shop, harness maker, and carriage factory.

The Noah Masonic Lodge and the Good Templars, a temperance organization, met in rooms above businesses in two of these buildings.

Flames, suspected of erupting in the hallway or stairs near the Good Templars’ rooms, spread rapidly to sheds in the rear, then from building to building along the street where “in a short time the whole block of frame buildings was one mass of roaring flames.”

Once the alarm was given, men quickly came running with buckets and dragged the little hand engine owned by the community to the scene but, with no adequate water supply nearby, their efforts were fruitless. All was lost with the estimate of damage being $20,000, a huge sum in 1886.

Within a few years, after Knowersville had been renamed Altamont, the village was incorporated and water mains installed. When, in 1893, Altamont Hose Company was established, it was said that the disastrous fire of 1886 helped to motivate the villagers to organize to provide better fire protection.

Large buildings, large losses

Among Guilderland’s large buildings of that day were hotels. Very well known and heavily patronized was Sloans’ Hotel on the Western Turnpike (approximately opposite the Schoolcraft House) in the hamlet of Guilderland. Around 1 a.m. on March 14, 1900, the owner awoke to the crackling sound of a rapidly spreading fire, forcing him, his wife, and daughter to jump out of a window in their nightclothes, fleeing to their neighbors’.

The church bell was rung to sound the alarm, arousing the men of the community to come running with their buckets, hopeless against the raging flames in the 60-year-old structure, Thought to have begun in the cellar kitchen, this fire ended the history of a popular hotel. The loss was $6,000.

The other large structures of that day were the feed and grist mills serving the farmers of the surrounding area. Miles Hayes’s huge feed and grist mill adjoined the D & H tracks at the corner of Altamont’s Park Street and Fairview Avenue.

Late one afternoon in 1909, the discovery of fire in the third floor of his mill quickly brought out members of the Altamont Hose Company who played two streams of water on the structure. Fortunately for Hayes, the firemen had recently acquired a heavy section ladder that reached up to the third story capable of bearing the weight of two or three firemen holding a water-filled hose.

Pouring water into the window at the end of the building extinguished the flames, halting them from spreading, but in the process destroyed large quantities of grains, animal feed, and machinery. Insurance covered Hayes’s losses.

New companies

McKownville and Guilderland Center each established their own fire companies in 1918, commencing fundraising to purchase equipment. The year before the Witbeck Hotel, originally the McKown Tavern, had burned, motivating McKownville to establish its fire department.

In 1924, Guilderland Center had the foresight to acquire the Village Queen, a pumper powered by a Model T engine capable of shooting two streams of water up and over a three-story building.

Guilderland Center was the scene of the next huge fire when, in August 1926, the three-story former Hurst feed and grist mill located near the West Shore Railroad tracks went up in flames.

Described as a “spectacular blaze,” it could be seen for miles around, attracting hundreds to the scene. Guilderland Center called in Altamont and city firemen to deal with the huge fire.

The mill and an adjoining building were empty, due to be moved across the road because they stood in the path of the planned overpass bridging the West Shore tracks. The two buildings were a total loss, but firemen saved the nearby railroad station and hotel. No cause of the fire could be determined.

Next to burn was the Guilderland Center hotel that had survived the adjacent mill fire only months before. The building was under new ownership, but had not reopened.

Firemen had to run hoses out to a pond near the West Shore tracks for a water supply, causing a delay in dousing the hotel fire. The building was a total loss to its new owner, but its sheds, stable and hotel garage were saved. Again, no cause of the fire could be determined.

Pumper needed

The old Hayes Mill in Altamont, which had narrowly escaped destruction in 1909, was now operated by Fort Orange Feed Stores Inc. One evening in December 1927, a fire, possibly originating in the boiler room and spreading rapidly, had already made much headway by the time a bypassing resident noticed it.

In spite of quickly responding and aiming three streams of water at the building, the Altamont Hose Company was unable to put down the flames. The Guilderland Center Fire Department arrived towing the Village Queen, which was able to direct two forceful streams of water up and over the building.

Even this was not enough to quell the inferno. By midnight, the building was a total loss. Fortunately for the village of Altamont, the winter night was exceptionally warm and there was no wind blowing.

The Guilderland Center firefighters earned praise in The Enterprise for their assistance, but questions were raised in the village as to why Altamont had never purchased a pumper for its own hose company. The paper also pointed out firemen wore their own clothes and, if ruined while fighting a fire, were expected to pay for their replacement.

Miss Jennie Wasson, a wealthy woman who owned a summer cottage on the hill, then donated money for gear for the Altamont firemen. The pumper question was still being discussed when the next big fire broke out in Altamont.

This time, the Altamont Hotel was ablaze. Smelling smoke, the owner evacuated his family and raced to his neighbors to turn in the alarm. Hose company members hurried to the scene to find the attic and third floor in flames, kept confined by the hotel’s metal roof.

Again Guilderland Center firefighters rushed the Village Queen to the burning building, pouring water on the roof and the area where flames broke through while inside Altamont firemen were trying to quell the blaze.

Finally under control, fire had seriously damaged the third floor and attic and the gallons of water poured on the burning hotel had drenched the remaining interior. The hotel’s metal roof kept the flames confined while the brisk wind blowing earlier had died down, preventing the fire from threatening the village with disaster. 

The Guilderland Center Fire Department was thanked and praised in The Enterprise for responding to the request for help in fighting the March 1928 Altamont Hotel blaze so willingly, pulling the Village Queen, their powerful pumper, “no small favor when they come a distance of nearly three miles in the middle of the night to render assistance.”

It was very obvious that Altamont needed its own pumper.

Seminary burns

LaSalette Seminary, originally erected as the Kushaqua Hotel on the escarpment above Altamont, caught fire early on the morning of Oct. 25, 1946. Smelling smoke while at breakfast, the priests and seminarians, after discovering fire burning in the attic and third floor, quickly exited the building.

A combination of old wood, a shortage of water to effectively battle the blaze, and high winds all contributed to the venerable structure being consumed within an hour in spite of the efforts of firefighters from Altamont, Guilderland Center, Voorheesville, the Army Depot, and two trucks from Albany’s Fire Department.

Hamlet spared

A drought in the summer and fall of 1947 had left fields and hedgerows in the area tinder dry. Late one October morning, it was most likely a lighted cigarette butt tossed from a car window by a careless smoker along Route 146 east of Altamont that ignited a fast burning fire that came close to destroying Guilderland Center.

A furious west wind pushed a wall of flames toward the hamlet and Edward Griffith’s Fruitdale Farm situated just to the west. The conflagration covered an area one-quarter mile wide and raced like a wildfire, burning everything in its path.

State Police warned hamlet residents to be prepared to evacuate as flames 20 to 30 feet high bore down. Two-hundred men from seven fire companies and employees of the Army Depot lined up, managing to stop the flames just at the edge of the hamlet.

Fire Commissioner Joseph Banks later described it as “a ball of fire rolling toward the village.” Guilderland Center was saved through the strenuous efforts of the volunteer firemen and a plentiful supply of water from the nearby Black Creek.

Edward Griffin, owner of Fruitdale Orchard just west of the hamlet, wasn’t so fortunate. He lost two barns, over 1,000 fruit trees from his 30-acre orchard, farm equipment, a truck, and 2,000 apple-packing boxes. The only thing left standing was his house; everything else was lost.

Depot fires

The Voorheesville Holding and Reconsignment Point, then informally called the Army Depot (now the site of the Northeastern Industrial Park), has been the scene of three major fires.

The late Ella Van Eck, a World War II depot employee, remembered a huge fire in Warehouse No. 3, which burned a large supply of cots packed in flammable excelsior.

With no specific date, the details can’t be tracked down in print because of World War II censorship, although the Enterprise noted in an article about a later warehouse fire, that a major warehouse fire had occurred during the war.

When the United States Government constructed these warehouses in the early 1940s, the structures were 960 feet long and 190 to 200 feet wide, divided into four sections with firewalls separating the sections.

Discovered by a civilian guard on June 17, 1950, a fire in the south end of Warehouse No. 5 had apparently been blazing for some time, the firewall keeping it contained to that one very large section and confining most of the damage to that area.

Smoke rose 200 feet in the air with high winds driving flames 60 feet high, making the fire visible for miles around. This attracted hundreds of spectators who created a huge traffic tie-up on local roads.

The Army Depot had its own resident fire department, but controlling this blaze was beyond their capability and departments from Guilderland Center, Altamont, Voorheesville, Albany, and Schenectady were called in to give mutual aid.

The fire roared out of control for two hours and by the time it was finally out, $2,000,000 in damage was done to the warehouse and its military contents.

Sixteen months later, on Sept. 24, 1951, another major fire occurred at the Army Depot; this time, Warehouse No. 6 was completely destroyed. The fire was already burning out of control by the time it was discovered, so depot firemen quickly called in nearby departments from Voorheesville, Guilderland Center, Altamont, Westmere, McKownville, North Bethlehem ,and Albany’s Pumper No. 10.

As firemen were arriving on the scene, the warehouse roof collapsed and, not long after, the walls caved in. The blaze was brought under control in one-and-a-half hours, but water continued to be poured on throughout the night.

Soon after its discovery, just as the year before, a huge plume of smoke attracted many hundreds of curious onlookers who lined the depot fences and tied up traffic on local roads. Loss of the warehouse and material belonging to the Army Corps of Engineers was estimated to be $2,575,000.

More recent losses

After the huge 1927 fire at Altamont’s Fort Orange Mill, the site was rebuilt as a feed mill by W.G. Ackerman. The Ackerman Mill operated as one of the village’s prosperous businesses until Aug. 17, 1961, when in the midst of Fair Week, fire was discovered.

Believed to have started in the grain elevator, flames then raced through the office and feed-mixing and storage building, and within an hour the building was a $200,000 total loss.

Flames leaped 50 feet in the air with clouds of smoke and it was claimed that the plume could be seen as far away as Albany. Eleven fire companies fought the fire including Altamont, Fort Hunter, Guilderland Center, McKownville, and Westmere.

On the adjacent D & H tracks, a Walter Truck Co. crash truck sat pumping out 1,500 gallons a minute to prevent the flames from leaping the tracks to Ackerman’s coal and lumber yard on the other side.

Fortunately no wind was blowing; otherwise the neighboring Hayes House and other old houses on nearby streets and the fairgrounds, which backed on the Ackerman Mill property, could have burned as well.

As Altamont’s police chief said afterward, there were “catastrophic possibilities.”

Guilderland Center’s Helderberg Reformed Church was the victim of an arsonist on March 26, 1986 when he poured accelerant to start a fire that fully engulfed the historic structure. The fire was noticed by passing motorists about 10:30 p.m. and had a good start by the time firemen arrived.

Seven fire companies assisted the Guilderland Center Fire Department in bringing the fire under control. Spreading rapidly through the old, open building, when the flames reached the taller bell tower, the bell gave out one loud peal. By morning only a shell of the building remained.

The congregation was forced to demolish the remains and build a new church on the site. The arsonist was arrested and sentenced for his act.

Guilderland residents and businesses have been grateful for the protection provided by our volunteer firefighters beginning in the 1890s with the formation of Altamont’s Fire Department. These volunteers respond to our calls any hour of the day or night and deserve our thanks and support.