Alfred dedicates historic marker at village hall

ALFRED — Sirens blared in Alfred Saturday afternoon, not for an emergency, but for a celebration of local history.

A procession of emergency vehicles from the A.E. Crandall Hook and Ladder Company and the Alfred Station Fire Company rolled past the Alfred village hall in the September sunshine. The hall was the original home of Alfred’s fire department, a fact that was commemorated with the unveiling of an historic marker in front of the village hall Saturday.

The blue and yellow marker notes that the imposing brick structure was built as Firemen’s Hall in 1890-1891 and became the village hall in 1973 when a new fire station was constructed on adjacent property. Fire company historians and village officials secured the marker from the New York State Historic Marker Grant Program sponsored by the William G. Pomeroy Foundation of Syracuse.

“It is a great moment for us as a village and as a fire department,” Alfred village Mayor Becky Prophet said.

Rebecca Weaver Hamm, president of A.E. Crandall Hook and Ladder, acknowledged the current and past chiefs, presidents and active members who gathered for the unveiling of the plaque.

Rich Hoffman, a 47-year member of the fire company, and one of its historians, provided a timeline of the building’s development dating back to February 1887.

“In the early days of the company, it existed because of Almond E. Crandall who was a staunch friend and financial supporter to our company, hence the company’s name: A.E. Crandall Hook and Ladder,” Hoffman said.

In July 1889 the lot on West University Street was purchased for $250. In June 1890, a one-ton cornerstone was laid. Bricks were made locally by the Alfred Clay Brick Company. Construction of the Victorian vernacular style fire station took just one year.

“The building was built almost entirely by volunteer labor with men working before breakfast, after supper and all night to complete the structure that is still in use today,” Hoffman added.

Tim Cox, fire company treasurer, read from an article published in the Alfred Sun “quite a few years ago” that was part of the grant application for the historic marker.

“The hall has no known architect, although construction was likely supervised by a master builder with plans taken from a pattern book of that era,” Cox read.

A newspaper article from 1898 stated that the building was much more than a fire station; it was a source of community pride. “While we have always been far ahead of any other fire company in Western New York, in the matter of a building, we shall now be out of sight,” the article boasted.

The grant application noted that with a second floor audience room including a balcony and a proscenium arch stage, the building is “the public heart of the village” that has served “the community firefighters, and also its political leaders, dramatists, musicians, singers, students, cooks and visual artists . . . the sole village building provided a center for the socio-cultural life of our residents.”

Saturday’s unveiling provided a ground-level acknowledgment of Alfred’s firefighting history. The other can be seen by looking to the very top of the bell and clock tower. There, a weathervane shows a firefighter climbing a ladder “suggesting a path to heaven through earthly deeds."