HomeMy WebLinkAboutDoug Landua TranscriptionCity of College Station
Heritage Programs Oral History
Interviewee: Doug Landua
Interviewer: Jared Donnelly
Date: January 14, 2015
Place: College Station, Texas
Project: CSFD
Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt
Jared Donnelly (JD): Ok, I think we’re in business. This is Jared Donnelly. I’m with Jack, oh I’m sorry, Doug Landua. Am I saying that right?
00:07 Doug Landua (DL): Right.
00:09 JD: Ok, um, this is January 14, 2015. Um, we’re sitting here talking a bit about College Station Fire Department, A&M Fire Department, and history of the area. Um, just to start
off, when and where were you born? And what did your father do?
00:23 DL: Well I was born in uh, Brenham, Texas. And uh um, that was a long time ago, June 28, 1944. Uh, my father, we were working a farm. Then my father took a job for the city of
Bryan and was uh the department head for the waste water treatment. And then so we moved up here to College Station. And while he was working, and uh and that’s when I finished high
school at A&M Consolidated. And then went to work for the fire department at the university.
01:09 JD: When did you guys move here to College Station? [brief silence] Just guess.
01:15 DL: Let me think here. I’d say around fifty…six.
01:27 JD: So just before high school I guess for you?
01:29 DL: Well yeah, be uh, I started out [mumble]. Well it would actually be about, what did I say fifty-six? I moved up here in sixth grade so uh that would be…
01:45 JD: That’s about right. You would have been twelve in fifty-six. Right?
01:47 DL: Yeah it’d be uh, yeah twelve. So that would be a little bit more than that. That’d be about right.
01:53 JD: Yeah
01:53 DL: Yeah twelve years. So twelve years from um sixty-two, what is that fifty? Somewhere in the early 50s anyway.
02:02 JD: Right. And then uh when did you graduate Consol [A&M Consolidated]?
02:07 DL: Sixty-two.
02:08 JD: Sixty-two. Right, right. How did you get into firefighting? Or why did you want to get into firefighting?
02:14 DL: Well I got out of high school I was just looking for a job and I, I seen a, a deal, uh ad, a wanted deal, from the, from the university over there. And I happened to know the
fire chief uh at that time who was Gilbert Iman(? Name of fire chief at time). And uh he talked me into going for work over there. So I did. And it started out uh just as a firefighter
working for him. I had no training in the fire service at all. But, you know over the years, you just, you go to school and you pick up stuff on it so.
02:54 JD: Right
02:54 DL: Anyway so I worked there from ’62-73. And uh well that’s when uh Mayor (James B. “Dick”) Hervey. Uh it’s kinda weird. And he, he stopped by my house on Park Place which is
where I used to live and say that they were talking about wanting me to take the chief job. And I said I’m. I was fire marshal over at the university at that time. And had, paid my
eleven years with them so I was vested and I said you know, I know what the, what the pay, what the other chief was getting. And I said I can’t afford to give all this up to come over
there. So well just promise me you’ll, you’ll talk to the city manager. We’re, we’re in a hurry. [chuckle] I was like ok, I’ll go see him tomorrow. So I went over there and talked with
the city manager Brian Boswald. And uh and he said, he said we decided you’re going to be our next fire chief. And I said I don’t know about that Mr. Boswald. And I said, you know [chuckle]
uh, what does it pay? And he shot me a figure, you know. I said well I, I appreciate the offer but I don’t think I’m interested. And I’d stand up and he’d shoot me another figure.
04:19 JD: [chuckle] Really?
04:19 DL: Yeah, yeah. And it finally got where it was a little bit more money. And uh, uh I said well, let me go talk to my wife about it and I’ll let you know tomorrow. [chuckle]. This
is crazy. And uh, I did. I was talking to my wife after I got off work. And I told her I said what they wanted me to take that job over there and I said I just don’t know. And we’d
talk about it back and forth. And it come across the t.v. that College Station announces a new fire chief. Uh-oh, they must have gotten tired of waiting on me, you know?
05:01 JD: [chuckle] All afternoon hunh?
05:02 DL: Well it comes on when we perked up and was listening, you know? And I knew the only other person that was uh, he was considering at the time and that was uh, a volunteer that
worked for me over there. [laughs] And anyway it come on and announced my name.
05:20 JD: No kidding? [laughs]
05:22 DL: I thought oh my gosh. I heard, got on the phone and I called my boss up at the university. And uh, and anyway, I thought oh man what’s this gonna be you know? And he was real
tickled about it. He said well you know, uh they had asked us about you, but they said we couldn’t think of anybody who’d be any better for it because you know the university like the
back of your hand. So that would be very beneficial to us too. And so that made me feel a little bit better. So that’s how I got it.
05:58 JD: Yeah.
05:59 DL: There was no hiring or consultant firm and all that. Looking, looking for one, you know.
06:02 JD: Huh. Could you, could you talk a little bit more about what it was like doing, uh, working as a firefighter for the university? Uh, how many, how many people were involved
in it when you were there? I know it was a lot of volunteer stuff early on?
06:13 DL: There was mostly.
06:13 JD: Yeah.
06:14 DL: In fact that was all beside the chief and myself.
06:16 JD: Uh-huh. So you were the only paid firefighter?
06:20 DL: Right. And you really uh firefighting was uh not very much of time. We didn’t make that many runs. And the population of College Station was about 17,000. Uh, the university
was the big thing.
06:36 JD: Right.
06:37 DL: And they were providing the fire protection for the city, the university itself, and south Brazos County. Which is very unusual. Uh, I think it was about the only, place in
Texas that I know of that was actually, the university would provide protection for the city. Uh, everywhere else the cities would provide it through the state.
07:04 JD: Sure. The other way around.
07:05 DL: And so that was kinda, different deal. Mainly my job with the, university, besides fighting fires for the city and everything and those three entities. Uh, it was mostly inspections
on campus, fire marshal-type work. And uh, keeping up with all the thousands of fire extinguishers and checking them monthly and stuff. And I had a few part-time, TAMU [Texas A&M University]
students working for me to help me do that. Uh, but.
07:44 JD: This was all when you were in your twenties. Right?
07:45 DL: Yeah.
07:46 JD: Yeah. Uh, where was. Um, I’m assuming you had equipment, so engines and things like that. Where was that all stored on campus?
07:52 DL: Uh it was uh. The fire station was over there on Ireland Street. Which is which is Ireland on one side and then it’s uh.
08:02 JD: It crosses university.
08:03 DL: It crosses university.
08:04 JD: It’s College Ave.
08:05 DL: It’s right there. Part of the um, uh, I’m trying to think what they used to called it. Uh, physical plant. And the power plant and the physical plant which included the fire
station, paint, carpenter, electric, air conditioning, and so on. Uh, most all of the volunteers that we had came from there in the physical plant or the power plant which was a part
of the physical plant.
08:41 JD: Employees rather than students?
08:42 DL: Huh?
08:43 JD: Employees rather than students?
08:44 DL: Yeah, there wasn’t no students. It was all employees.
08:46 JD: Gotcha.
08:47 DL: And uh so it, you know most of the time that’s the way it went on was that we had three 1931 American LaFrance firetrucks. Two bumpers and one ladder truck.
09:04 JD: This is in the, this is in the sixties. You had thirty-year old.
09:10 DL: Well ’62.
09:10 JD: Yeah.
09:11 DL: All the way through till ’73.
09:13 JD: Really?
09:13 DL: Uh, we had three ’31 and had one firetruck which is a Ford. It was a ’50-something model. It might have been a ’51 but I’m not sure. But it was a ‘50s I know that.
09:25 JD: Was it, was it typical then to have equipment last that long? Because that seems, thirty to forty years seems really old for stuff now.
09: 34 DL: Uh, well, it needed to be replaced bad. But you know every morning I have four, five gallon can of heavy oil and so it was, it was just running out. You know in the pans in
the station but they still ran. They, they probably be just had to bear with them. You know, the Ford was our first out because you couldn’t even hardly turn the steering wheels on
those ‘31s. We had to find the volunteer who was the biggest and the strongest in the bunch to be able to turn those.
10:15 JD: No kidding.
10:16 DL: We had one with a 500gpm pumper and another was a 750. And that 750 was had a steering wheel like that [makes a large circle with his arms]. About that big of round. And had
a gear shift about four foot tall with a big old knob. My hand wouldn’t even cover it. But we’d get the biggest guy so that they could then have to make corner turns with, which I don’t,
I start swinging as far as steering wheel. And uh, I mean it.
10:43 JD: It must have been something.
10:43 DL: It was unbelievable. Beautiful trucks. Oh they were pretty. That paint jobs on those lasted all those years and I mean it was, they were beautiful. Uh, all pin stripping and
stuff on them, you know.
10:57 JD: LaFrances? Is that what you said?
10:58 DL: Uh no, those were Macks.
10:59 JD: Macks, ok.
11:01 DL: Yeah. Uh, we had, I say three Macks so there and one Ford. Now those belonged to the Engineering Extension service. Out on campus. They used them for firefighting and you know
they got to training over there uh.
11:17 JD: Brayton?
11:18 DL: Brayton field. They were actually, under them. They were bought for them for training. And then we used them secondary for fighting fires.
11:27 JD: Ok, was it called TEEX then? The engineering extensions? T.E.E.X.?
11:32 DL: Yeah.
11:40 JD: That’s interesting. So how many uh, you said there wasn’t a whole lot of fire incidences, but are there any memorable ones on campus or in the area while you were with A&M?
11:49 DL: Oh yeah. But that would be too many to go through.
11:54 JD: Didn’t the president’s house burn at one point?
11:56 DL: Yeah. Yeah. Earl Rudder. Uh-huh.
11:58 JD: Oh when Earl Rudder was in there huh?
11:59 DL: Yeah, he was the president at the time. In fact, yeah, that, that was pretty well full-bloom just about when we got there.
12:09 JD: Really?
12:10 DL: The way we used to do that, if he was a volunteer fireman at the university, they lived in Fireman’s Village. Which it used to be at University and Bizzell, College Avenue
on this side. It used to be a big circle.
12:27 JD: Yeah, I’ve seen pictures.
12:28 DL: Ok. And Fireman’s Village was on the northeast corner.
12:36 JD: [Shows Doug Landua a photograph of the A&M campus] Uh, I think this might be too new. That’s from ’79, that photograph. So it would’ve been. Yeah, right over here.
12:48 DL: Well that’s, yeah, that’s not one. But that’s what, where it was.
12:51 JD: Where is used to be at, yeah. ‘Cause uh.
12:55 DL: Yeah this is System Administration. Yeah, but this here used to be a circle.
13:02 JD: Right.
13:03 DL: And uh, right off to the northeast corner there where it’s married student housing.
13:10 JD: Hmm-hmm. Or was. That’s gone now too.
13:14 DL: Yeah, I know. [chuckle] That used to be two streets up there called Norton) and Ball. And if you were a fireman, worked for the university, a volunteer. Then you could apply
to rent those rental houses at a real discount. Some of them were like $2.00 dollars a month.
13:35 JD: No kidding.
13:35 DL: And the ones that were re-, they called refurbished, was $20.00 a month. When I got in there at my age it was $20.00 dollars a month. But they, I mean, they were single-walled.
I mean when the wind blew the wallpaper just [waved his hand] [Chuckle] I mean, and you know, that’s the way it was. And I’ll never forget that.
13:58 JD: Hot in the summer, cold in the winter.
13:58 DL: I’m telling you they had a, I remember our bathroom in the house I had was uh there was claw-foot old iron tub which everybody’s trying to get now. It was that and then a window
on the northside and that wind just come through there. Boy you talk about not wanting to take a bath.
14:20 JD: [Chuckle]
14:20: You know in the winter time. Gee it was cold. But they had a siren up there on the, in what they call fireman’s village. And the power plant, part of the physical plant, they
had people around the clock so they answered our fire phone. And from there they would energize the siren on the hill over there where everybody to go to the station. See?
14:46 JD: Right. And you just.
14:48: So they’d be peeling out of there you know.
14:49 JD: Driving or running?
14:50 DL: No, driving.
14:50 JD: No, driving. Driving, all right.
14:51 DL: Yeah, [laughs]. Yeah, we got [laugh]. No, no running, just driving and that was a sight too you know? Uh all the cars and stuff coming out from the hill over there. Going to
the station. Then the first one get there have to unlock the doors and go in and usually get on the truck and wait for enough to, to man the truck to leave you know.
15:15 JD: Get the engines warmed up.
15:15 DL: Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. So many times when I uh left fireman’s village, the house up there, you can look in the distance and you can see glow in the sky that’s how…
15:30 JD: Where it was.
15:30 DL: Delayed, you know then. And one of them, and I’ll never forget was Lincoln School.
15:35 JD: Ahh.
15:36 DL: Uh.
15:37 JD: Yeah.
15:38 DL: Yeah. That was back in when African Americans went to different schools.
15:41: JD: Wasn’t that suspected arson?
15:45 DL: I don’t know. I mean, I couldn’t, we, they never proved nothing.
15:49 JD: Well, well some people thought it might have been that.
15:51 DL: Well let’s put it like this, we were really hampered in trying to get to the fire. And uh I was driving the first truck in. And uh I mean there was so many people. It showed
you what delayed call it was. It was so many people I couldn’t even get the truck in there. I had to just uh, uh the old Ford truck had a, it was kinda V-shaped. Narrow in the front,
wide in the back for dualies. And the fire chief was showed up and he was on the other end there and I couldn’t even down the street, Holleman, to get to him.
16:27 JD: Because there was so many folks on the street.
16:28: Yeah, everybody shows up you know and they’re lined up waiting. He hollered at me “Put it in grandma [granny gear or low gear] and come on.” [makes noises as if off road] Busted
them cars off and police behind them writing up tickets on top of it. You know? But
uh anyway we got in there and there must have been thousands of people around there and we had trouble. Uh, and we, just kinda hampered trying to, trying to do what we could do. It wasn’t,
there wasn’t a whole lot we could do because it was already burned up pretty well.
17:08 JD: Right.
17:09 DL: But it caused a chain reaction and uh it’d probably being one of the first schools I guess that did away with segregation you know. For me that was in ’66. Roughly ’66. So
then you know A&M Consolidated High School and when, when the African American school burned down well then they went ahead and they put everybody together. So it was kinda forced.
17:36 JD: Integration, sure. Yeah, huh.
17:39 DL: Segregation went then [laughs].
17:41 JD: Right, right, right. Did uh, um how long do you think the fire had been going by, by the time y’all got there?
17:47 DL: It’s hard to tell. It’s, it was at full bloom when I left the house.
17:53 JD: Really? And you could see it from there?
17:54 DL: Oh yeah. You could see it the glow from there and all that. All we did was watch exposures there you know but, and that’s about what mattered to you.
18:02 JD: You said, “Watch exposures.” So like?
18:04 DL: Yeah, you know try to keep it from spreading.
18:08 JD: Okay, yeah.
18:08 DL: So that’s what we, we did with it but it was, uh, it was, it was a heck of a night. I’ll never forget that one.
18:20 JD: Did anybody get hurt in it?
18:21 DL: Huh?
18:22 JD: Did anybody get hurt in the fire?
18:24 DL: No.
18:25 JD: Okay, that’s good.
18:26 DL: No, not of any magnitude anyway. But, you know. But it was uh. Yeah, it was all kind of rumors about that and you know went on. And that kinda rushed. Like I said that got
A&M Consolidated going to where they combine it rather than build another school there you know. So. Heck of a way to do about it, but.
18:52 JD: [Laugh]
18:52 DL: But I think I had notes there for a long time. Uh, yeah it was ’66 I think.
18:59 JD: Yeah.
18:59 DL: Somebody at the fire department. Uh, I don’t know if it was the chief or somebody. Uh, I had all these records but I mean from ’62 on that I know of. Uh, I had them all over
there and, because there’s a lot of history there. And somebody decided to throw them all away there.
19:19 JD: No! I was about to ask you who had it. Right? Go track it down.
19:22 DL: There was a girl uh that over there told me that they weren’t there anymore. Somebody got rid of them. Yeah, yeah.
19:32 JD: That’s the type of stuff I hate to hear.
19:34 DL: Yeah. That. I don’t know who it was, I’m not going to say.
19:41 JD: Sure. Um. What would you say is one of the big differences between the way firefighting worked and, and I guess the way fire departments worked in general between the ‘60s
and ’70s to the way, way it went by the time you finished your career?
19:58 DL: Well I guess the biggest thing was when it started getting a breathing apparatus and stuff like that. We used to have to just eat that stuff. I mean that’s why they call them
you know, smoke eaters. But um, we didn’t have it. We were lucky when we were running volunteers out there, we were lucky that everyone had a pair of boots and a coat. And we didn’t
have enough to go around. I mean this was just you know, first come first serve. You know?
20:31 JD: Really?
20:32 DL: We kinda knew after awhile, after we got enough boots where, we had little compartments made where they. You know, that’s where they had different sizes and stuff. And um,
we had that and so. And we had and most of them had a helmet but didn’t have no shields on it or nothing you know. Just, we ate smoke. I mean and that’s back when all the asbestos sidings
and all that was in, on these houses. So you know we got exposed to a lot of uh, lot of stuff. And. You know. We just have to eat it and everybody in there was just choking and trying
to get back out and.
21:15 JD: Can’t see.
21:15 DL: Throwing their guts up and stuff. You know, it was a lot of difference.
21:20 JD: Really?
21:20 DL: We had ended up one time we uh, uh left there we probably had maybe four or five air packs, breathing apparatus, over there.
21:33 JD: By the time you left A&M?
21:35 DL: Yeah.
21:35 JD: Yeah.
21:36 DL: That was the most they ever had. And there was just because of the chiefs and stuff keep saying, you know, we needed some and finally they get one or two you know. Stuff like
that.
21:49 JD: Wow.
21:49 DL: We did end up getting uh you know, little protective clothing but not nothing like it was when, you know what it is nowadays.
22:01 JD: Sure.
22:02 DL: I can’t even understand a lot of this stuff that they got now, I mean heck. You know, I didn’t even know that it made it any better. But, uh, it was one of the first ones I
had a salesman gave me one to try out. Wanted to [chuckle] but everyone laughed at me, but it was a, a helmets like, like they use now, you know. And to them it looked like Hitler something
so they would give me hard times about it. But, but you know now I uh just common you know. But um, we still had the whole ones when’s we were over there at the university.
22:36 JD: The long brim?
22:38 DL: Yeah.
22:38 JD: Yeah.
22:39 DL: Keep the tar out of you and down, down your back and neck. And. And we did get some shields put on them eventually. Just a little half shield that’d come down to help protect
you a little bit. Yeah but I, so much of that, I think now about, all the stuff I breathed in all them years. I still smoke. But I figured man if that didn’t kill. You know. It don’t
make sense quitting now. I’ve been eating it my whole life so. Well not after I got city over there and we started getting more equipment and we had better protection.
23:20 JD: Yeah. Yeah. When I was talking with one of the firefighters over at Station 6 he was showing me, giving me a tour. They’ve got a washing machine for all their equipment that’s
specifically designed for their jackets and their, their outer gear because of the difference. They wash them all the time. Um, everybody of course has their own, specifically theirs.
They’ve got tons of stuff.
23:40 DL: For a six-plus million dollar building they ought to have it.
23:43 JD: Yeah. [laughs]. Yeah that’s true. It is, it is a pretty fancy spot. [laughs]. What about A&M and College Station itself? How? What’s, what’s kinda the biggest change for you
in general with the city and the university? I imagine growth is probably.
23:58 DL: Well you know I can tell you it’s very weird that the situation where the university was actually providing protection for the city. And Brazos County. It was usually just
the opposite. Well it all, you know, all uh come to a head I think when that Lincoln School [burned down]. I think there was a lot of uh people fussing and raising cain about it and
I think it finally got the city to move forward. And I don’t blame them. I mean the cost of a fire department was expensive. And so they were getting by for, for nothing. Uh so to speak.
They paid a little bit like $25 dollars a run and every volunteer that showed up, they’d give them $2 dollars for the first hour and a dollar thereafter. And I would have to figure
out each person’s how many they made that month. And I put it all together and I’d send a bill to the city and to the county. But that’s how it was figured. Two dollars if you show
up for the first call and a dollar for every hour thereafter that you was on the scene.
25:13 JD: Did you, did you guys show up for um like car accidents and medical stuff like the fire department does now?
25:19 DL: Well that’s another ball game.
25:21 JD: Yeah?
25:21 LD: Uh, no. Uh, not unless they specifically called us. The ambulance service, the ambulance service was provided by private funeral homes.
25:35 JD: Funeral homes?
25:36 DL: Yes.
25:36 JD: Not hospitals?
25:37 DL: Think that’s any kinda encouragement for what they do? But no, but anyway they, it was run by the private funeral homes and they had their own ambulances and stuff. And each
one had one. And um, but there was no law saying what kind of training they had to have or anything. It was like picking, pick them up and go, you know, type deal. That’s the way everybody
was operating. Uh, well then all of a sudden they decided you know, this was costing us too much, we’re not gonna do it anymore. It’s when the law started to change to you had to have
a little bit of training to do that. And so they decided to get out of it rather than go through all that. So then Bryan, College Station and the county got together and, they hired
this crew to run ambulance services. They provided some old ambulances. Uh, I believe they had a total of three. And this company was going to do this. Well, all of a sudden this company
was doing it for a while, they were catching hell waiting and all the complaints they were getting and everything, you know. They were in it for money I guess or whatever. But anyway,
people weren’t happy with the amount of care they got. And so then they notified the city that you know, hey we’re, we’re leaving town. And.
27:17 JD: When was this again?
27:19 DL: We’re gonna go deliver the ambulances is what was left of them. To your, to the city, tomorrow morning. Seven o’clock.
27:28 JD: When was this?
27:29 DL: Huh?
27:30 JD: What year was this do you think?
27:33 DL: It. I think it was ’76 or ’77. I don’t even know if I even got that right.
27:42 JD: I remember seeing something about it in that twenty-fifth anniversary book. This was while you were, while you were chief at uh College Station?
27:49 DL: Oh yeah. Yeah. It was. Because these ’76, I don’t have that down here neither. It was either ’76 or ’77 but you can get that out of.
27:59 JD: Yeah. The book. Yeah.
28:00 LD: Uh, I think uh Bobby Rhodes wrote a article that went to the paper did you see that?
28:05 JD: Uh-huh. I don’t know.
28:06 DL: There was uh, it was in ninety-something. He was writing down a little bit of history that was having the twenty-fifth anniversary.
28:16 JD: Okay, yeah.
28:17 DL: You might look at it, the Eagle printed it I think. But uh.
28:24 JD: That would have been a headache I guess, for you.
28:26 DL: Well, it wasn’t so bad but we didn’t have, I didn’t have many people hired by then. Uh, you know just a slow process every year trying to get enough people. And we was still
running with the university and the city because the volunteers, I mean, one and two people a shift ain’t enough to handle. They could drive a truck there, that was about it. So we
would work it together from about ’70 to ’73. In there, in both departments running everything.
28:58 JD: A&M’s department and College Station?
28:59 DL: Yes. Right. College Station. The uh at that, that EMS was a big challenge for me because you know we didn’t require anything other than regular first aid, and part of the basic
training for firefighter. You know then the city manager at that time was North Bardell and when they had this big pow-wow with all the different, the city of Bryan and the county,
he spoke up and, “Ehh, my fire department can handle that.” Oh okay [chuckles]. He had a lot of faith in us, in the College Station Fire Department. And you know, I appreciate that
but it was a nightmare man. The next morning at seven o’clock here they come driving up those ambulances to took them to our station, parked them out there. And you know, so they left,
left town.
29:58 JD: Wow.
29:59 LD: So uh, I think. I don’t know, at that time why I don’t know, but Bryan wasn’t going to do it. And they were sitting there with three times the personnel I had.
30:13 JD: Right. And the only hospital I guess in town was the one in Bryan.
30:15: DL: Do what?
30:16 JD: The only hospital in town was in Bryan, wasn’t it? At St. Joe’s?
30:19 DL: Uh, yeah. St. Joseph. I’m not sure when the Med center came in but it was Humania then but. Yeah, I think mostly they were all St. Joseph, yeah. I don’t know. Uh, but anyway
so well you know, I just had everybody that was employed there so look when we’re gonna go through a, get us some um training and then through. And getting everybody trained in emergency
medicine technician. That’s what we did. We hired some people in there and we trained everybody, in the department. And from that time on, when you’d hire somebody it was understood
that that was just a part of it. You was gonna be a firefighter in training and certified as that and an EMT. So anyway, and we kept getting better and better at it and, and stuff.
And um, it just uh. I mean, I mean I was a nerve wreck. I mean we, we were running Bryan, North Brazos county. We didn’t even know where in the hell this, most locations were.
31:24 JD: Really? Yeah. Like I said that time you drove with a map in the truck.
31:28 DL: Yeah or yeah, or if the radio, the two-way radio worked then we could communicate that way. But uh, yeah that I mean that, that was scary. It really was.
31:39 JD: I guess the first few weeks getting a call-in. You go, “Well. I hope we can handle it.”
31:43 DL: All that put on us. Yeah, put on us you know. And of course we knew that we could provide a better service than what they was, what the citizens were getting so. But that quick
twenty-four hour notice thing wasn’t quick a whole bunch. It really didn’t, it really didn’t have enough people to, to man that and the fire trucks so we’d have to call in backup anytime
they’d run something. Either fire or EMS or whatever. We’d have to call off-duty personnel to you know, fill the gaps. So it cost a little bit in overtime. Yeah but of course that was
a lot cheaper than what it cost for additional personnel. But, you know, city did come around every year. It was, one of my biggest challenges was getting enough, enough people hired
and getting approval to hire them and equipment and stuff like that to keep up with the growth of the city because at that time in ’73 it was about 17,000. And then when I left in ’90,
it was about, over 50,000. And that’s a fast growth. Well the difference was all these other departments in the city were already established and doing their thing, you know, whether
it be the water department, sewers, or whatever. And the police. They had a police department. Well the fire department, they didn’t have anything. The university provided. So that
put a lot of pressure on the fire service and then throwing EMS in it, on top of it, which we wasn’t used to. You know, so it, there was a whole lot of, lot of changes going on. But.
33:33 JD: Right. So when you took the job with the city that was ’73? Right? I, I imagine you immediately knew the challenges you were facing.
33:40 DL: Oh yeah. Yeah because I was in them. Well I mean really it was all about the same. Uh, just who I was gonna be answering to.
33:52 JD: Right. The, the fire chief of the city right before you, Woody Sevenson I guess? Did he come from A&M or was he from outside?
34:00 DL: He. Well he was originally from Grove, Texas and he was. I worked for him at the university too. And he was there as fire marshal, which they didn’t have a chief job. Uh. And
I’m not positive of that. I’m not sure if the fire chief at the university, if the university was getting the half of his pay from the city or not. I heard that but I don’t know that
for fact.
34:36 JD: But he wasn’t with the city for too long. Only a few years?
34:40 DL: Uh. About that, yeah.
34:42 JD: And did he go elsewhere? Or, or I mean, did he get fired? Or?
34:47 DL: I, I don’t really know what, what happened except he was let go I guess.
34:54 JD: And then they were looking for you. And then broadcasting it on T.V. that you’ve already taken the job [chuckles].
35:00 DL: I don’t know a whole lot.
35:01 JD: That’s one way to paint you into a corner, isn’t it?
35:03 DL: [chuckles]. Yeah, I don’t know if I want (it?)
35:06 JD: Yeah, I bet.
35:07 DL: The city manager was Brian Boswell credit for that. He knew, he knew how to get what he wanted. But I, I yeah, I don’t know if I, if I want to put anything like that in there
or not. But it’s, it’s kinda weird. It’s, it’s what could happened.
35:28 JD: Right. Did, did you immediately get to buy new equipment or what did the?
35:31: Oh no. It. Well when I got over there we had, we, Woody Sevenson when he was over there (at A&M). Him and I worked putting specks together for the city. The order of those two,
LaFrances, 1969, models or ’70 model.
35:57 JD: I might have a picture [pulls out a photo of the first fire station next to city hall].
36:04 DL: Well this is at the station now. There’s the, one of the LaFrances.
36:11 JD: One of, one of the original ones?
36:12 DL: Yeah. The, for College Station. Yeah. We never did have them over at the university. We were over there when they ordered these and I think they were ’69 models.
36:40 JD: This is the first station right?
36:43 DL: Yeah, that’s the one.
36:45 JD: That right there by city hall now?
36:46 DL: Yes. And that’s remodeled.
36:50 JD: Yeah, now it’s maintenance and all kinds of things. Yeah. So this is the original one that was bought.
36:54 DL: For College Station.
36:57 JD: Yeah. And is, and is this an engine too? Or is that a pump truck? Or?
36:58 DL: Uh, that’s a, yeah that’s a pumper but it’s uh. I don’t know if that was one from. I don’t, I can’t recall that. That’s a Ford there, this one’s a LaFrance.
37:13 JD: Your ambulances. Were those the ones that were dropped off or they new ones you think?
37:15 DL: No
37:16 JD: This is the photos from ’79.
37:17 DL: Oh no, that’s way. This is way advanced twenty, fifty years or so.
37:25 JD: Well no. This, this photo is from 1979.
37:27 DL: Yeah.
37:27 JD: So, the in the ambulance transfer, that had to have happened, what did you say it was? ’76?
37:35 DL: Or was it sixty. Yeah, seventy-six.
37:38 JD: So only three years later. But these would have been new ones?
37:41 DL: Oh I’m sure. Yeah. Those others kind of fell apart.
37:45 JD: Oh okay [chuckle].
37:45 DL: Yeah, this is a newer one.
37:46 JD: Gotcha, gotcha. [pause] So you were able to get the new, the new engine, the sixty. What did you say it was, a ’62? Or a ’69. Is that what you said?
38:01 JD: Yeah, they. I think that’s when they were ordered. Was it ’69? So. I’m getting confused, all the, all those truck year models. Now how could I ever forget that?
38:21 JD: [chuckle] I imagine it was a pretty major purchase for the city.
38:24 DL: Yeah, well, well they got both of them for $70,000 dollars. That was, that was with the equipment because the city of College Station didn’t have any equipment. So, yeah, now
I think we were working on one with no equipment, damn near $700,000.
38:43 JD: Wow. That’s a big difference.
38:46 DL: [chuckle] Yeah. Yeah it is. But when they put in that million gallon water tower over here in ’67 for $229,000. I think that’s what I have here, whether that’s correct or not,
I don’t know.
39:06 JD: I imagine that helped firefighting, raising the water pressure quite a bit.
39:09 DL: Yeah. The first two American LaFrances were $70,000.
39:18 JD: So you were constantly behind the eight-ball in equipment and personnel?
39:21 DL: Oh yeah, we were behind on everything I mean, you know. We even took the old Ford truck that was over at the university. When we kinda dismantled that and we had, that was
a big challenge trying to get volunteers over at the university working with part-paid over here at the city and getting them to, to work together, to try because neither one could
do it without the other. So we had to work together. But it’s hard to change their minds sometimes, you know. That was a challenge, yeah, accomplished. It worked pretty good. At least
we made through it anyway. That, that was, we had one truck over at the university that we brought over here because you kinda used it for grass fires and stuff like that. I had one
of those old 50-model Fords. So it was a lot of combined efforts from the city and this university to get to that point. And it was forced you know, probably, uh. The university just
say you know, we’re gonna, certain date, we getting out.
40:38 JD: Right. How long did folks stay in Fireman’s Village over there? I guess until the university was done with firefighting.
40:44 DL: Pretty well, yeah. They started kinda tearing it down and stuff as they become vacant and stuff. Then uh I don’t really know, you know, when that was that they, you know, when
they didn’t do that anymore. It was probably after the city was getting into it and they didn’t need the volunteers anymore.
41:07 JD: Right, right.
41:08 DL: I had a few of the volunteers, about fifteen, probably that were willing to go from there over to the city. We needed them you know. We had what they call Plectron Alerting
units that every volunteer was given and the sound, would hit a button that would send out to all the volunteers that we have a fire, blah blah, blah, at this place or that place and
report to the station. So that’s how we alerted everybody at one time.
41:41 JD: That was pretty advanced for the time I guess.
41:42 DL: Yeah, yeah, it was because you know, otherwise you could sit on the phone and call everybody up, so yeah, that was a lifesaver really. And we used that even for the paid
people that I had off-duty. It was so short, I had to make a requirement that they live within a ten air mile limit of the fire station. I put a deal on the map at the station and run
a circle around it, ten miles, and they had to live within that area. That was debatable whether I could do that or not but we did.
42:23 JD: Right. What was the system called that, that alerted folks?
42:28 DL: It was just a P lectron Alerting system.
42:30 JD: Plectron, okay.
42:32: Mrs. Landua (Mrs. L): One thing I want you to tell him about when I was scaredest, being a wife. He fought wild fires at the Willie Nelson Festival.
42:39 DL: Oh, yeah.
42:40 JD: Ah, I knew we’d go there. Yeah, the Willie Nelson fire. July 4th, 1974. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:43 DL and Mrs. L: [Laughs.]
42:48 JD: So that was just after you took over.
42:50 DL: [Laughs.] Somebody (???).
42:53 JD: Yeah, let’s go ahead and talk about it. That was, that was just after you took over. I, I read a little bit, so what I understand was that it was a car fire. It was a big,
old deal at the, at the Motor Speedway and you all show up and people were already trying to fight the fire themselves. Take away equipment and whatever else.
43:05 DL: Yeah. You don’t have the date on that thing?
43:08 JD: July 4, ’74. I looked it up.
43:10 DL: ’74?
43:10 DL: Yup.
43:11 DL: Yeah, I wasn’t there too long but yeah, we uh. We knew it was going to be a big thing so I required everybody to sleep at the station. Nobody could get off and go home or nothing.
Police almost the same way.
43:25 JD: Yeah.
43:25 DL: And uh, and that was a mess out there. They, they hadn’t been able. We did get a call for a car fire and I took off from the station. You could see the light and smoke blooming
up there. And got out there. The truck got and they went in there. Highway Patrol was saying not to go in there from the highway. And, but, but we did. And.
43:51 JD: They just wanted it to burn? I mean, somebody’s got to fight it.
43:52: DL: Well, I mean they was that bad though, I mean. They had a lot of secret service and, and undercover cops in there but they weren’t enough to control the type of crowds they
had. Most of them all.
44:07 JD: Yeah.
44:08 DL: But yeah, anyways, what I first pulled up to this fourteen cars involved at that time and it was just spread. Well some of them lay between the cars and paid no attention to.
44:23 JD: Stoned or drunk or something? Yeah. Oh gosh.
44:26: Mrs. L: Or naked.
44:27 JD: Or naked. [chuckles]
44:29 DL: Yeah, they, they were doing a few other things there too, here you know. [Laughs]
44:32 JD: Where, where do the wild fires?
44:36 DL: But they did, they stripped the truck, I mean pulled the hose and stuff off and everything. And we got ready again, and kinda knocked it down. And I, I was trying to get the
truck out of there and we had these undercover guys trying, cops trying to help us get out of there and of course, the heck with the equipment. I mean some of the hoses and stuff they
had them wrapped around everything. Oh with, well before I started counting, remember, “how many you got on your truck? How many you go with?” And they’d tell me, “Oh we’re missing
one. Oh boy.” Anyway, I went back in there and I finally find him. He had made it to a Red Cross vehicle that was in there. And they notified us that they had him. So.
45:27: JD: He got hurt?
45:28 DL: I went in there. No it just…
45:30: Mrs. L: He was scared.
45:30: DL: I mean it was just.
45:30: JD: Oh, really. The crowds.
45:32: DL: I mean. He would have if he stayed there. But I mean they just mobbed us you know.
45:38 JD: So would they, were they pulling off all the equipment and trying to fight the fire or they just being vandals, just screwing stuff up?
45:42: Mrs. L: Vandals.
45:42: DL: I don’t think they knew. I’m not sure they knew what they were doing. Some probably did, some didn’t. But yeah, they called themselves on fighting the fire. I guess they figured
you’d only need water in there, I don’t know.
45:53: Mrs. L: But we had a two-way radio up on that bar (points to a counter in the house) and I kept hearing, “Get out of their Chief. Get out of their Chief. It’s too dangerous, get
out of there chief.” And that was the scardest I ever was.
46:03: DL: Yeah, you were.
46:04: Mrs. L: It wasn’t even a bad fire.
46:07: JD: Wow.
46:08 DL: But anyway.
46:09: Mrs. L: I’ll leave him alone. [chuckles]
46:10: JD: No, please. That’s great.
46:11: DL: We made it through it.
46:13 JD: Yeah. So you got the fire out? Or, or just got it manageable?
46:14: DL: No, we got it out.
46:15 JD: Got it out. Yeah, yeah. How many cars you think were burned at the end?
46:20 DL: [sigh] I think we held. We kinda had a break there between them and I think we held it to the fourteen that were originally going when we got there.
46:26: JD: No idea how it started. I guess at that point you know. Who knows?
46:36: DL: Getting their friction. [laughs]
46:37 JD: Yeah, yeah. Alright.
46:39: DL: Yeah. [laughs]
46:40: JD: Yeah, it made it in the papers I know that. Um, and then that twenty-fifth anniversary they talked about it a little bit so I.
46:48: DL: You could see that plume of smoke coming up before we left there.
46:49: JD: Yeah, yeah. And that was the only major incident out there huh?
46:53: DL: Oh we, we had lots of them within that confined area of the race track. That was about the only one that mattered.
47:01: JD: Was the fire in the, iner-, inside the track?
47:04: DL: No. Uh-huh.
47:04: JD: It was outside.
47:05 DL: In parking.
47:06: JD: In parking, okay, gotcha, okay.
47:07 DL: They parked all the way from Texas Avenue or Highway 6, you know, all the way to the stands at the racetrack.
47:14 JD: Okay.
47:15 DL: And it was just jammed. I mean, you couldn’t. Most our fires came from without, out of that area where they were. I mean there was tents and stuff set up all along the highways
and everything and they was just crawling on people’s private land and setting up a tent.
47:32: JD: Yeah.
47:33 DL: Fires, fires going everywhere you know. It just, it was unbelievable. And I remember, oh uh, the police, we shared the building that was, that you showed the picture of. It
used to be fire and police there. And we was, fire department on one side, police on the other. Dispatch in between. And I remember the police too, they was coming in with people they’d
get up in that bathroom and this the bathroom the firemen had to use too you know. And he’d be bre-, trying to break through the door to the fire department and they’d be grabbing him
and pulling him back in you know. And, and, I mean it was all over the walls, bathrooms, everything.
48:15: Yeah. Puking all over the place. Yeah, man, geez.
48:17: DL: And old Carrington(?) was there, they even called him in.
48:21: JD: Who was this?
48:22 DL: The one who used to be a movie star.
48:24: JD: Carrington.
48:24 DL: Yeah, Carrington.
48:26 JD: I don’t know the name.
48:26: DL: He was a kung-fu type.
48:29 JD: Okay. Take your word for it.
48:29: DL: But anyway. But he was no problem. I mean but there was, there was everybody. I mean fire, police were just, it was just like crazy, I mean, you know. Well there was no more
personnel than what we had, you know. Even with putting everybody on duty. And just uh.
48:48: JD: How many you think you had? How many firefighters did you have at that point?
48:52: DL: Seventy…
48:52: JD: ’74. So right after you got there.
48:56: DL: Six…probably about, maybe nine at the most, probably.
49:02: JD: Really?!
49:03 DL: And then volunteers.
49:05: JD: Shoot. That’s hardly anybody for, I’m sure, tens of thousands of people out at the concert.
49:10:DL: Oh. Oh, I don’t know how many they had. But it was a, it was a bunch. Everything was jammed all over. You know, they would come into the stores and stuff in town and get supplies
and stuff, you know and there was no control you know, even. I never in my life. I think at that time Byrd(?) was the police chief and I know me and him talked about how we would do
this and that. But, yeah, that was.
49:42: JD: Quite the headache.
49:43: DL: It, it was. But.
49:45: JD: [Laughs.]
49:46: DL: We made it through it.
49:48: JD: No, it’s a good story.
49:49: DL: Yeah.
49:50: This is something I have been curious about for a while. Um, why does College Station have a white fire engines? I saw that the original ones you bought were all white. Um, is,
is that just how they did it? Or is there a reason for that?
50:00 DL: Uh. Uh. It just. I guess it was just me and Woody Sevenson(?) kinda liked white better than red. We had red, the, the old ones at the university were red. But the fire training
school was buying new equipment for training and stuff, they were using white too. More visible. At night that red, that dark red is hard to see. And we thought it was a safety standpoint
more than anything.
50:33: JD: Right, okay. Just curious.
50:34: DL: And easier to keep up too, than you know, the red ones.
50:32: JD: Right, okay. You, we talked about the fire field a bit. I was wondering if we could just talk a little bit more um. How involved were you? In, in the department you were in
charge of with the fire field. Was it just going for some training? Did you help teach? I bet it was a lot smaller back then too.
50:51 DL: Yeah, we uh, participated in it, but I helped a little as far as the heavy-duty rescue classes when they needed help. Or I would help with uh, uh, different types of training.
Nah, I never was, uh, put myself where I had to be in, in charge of doing it. I would help out but I had done training school was usually part of our biggest um, times of more runs
and ambulances and stuff like this so I more or less tried to concentrate on what I was hired for. Uh, I didn’t go out there. I sat there many a-day on some projects, but I didn’t,
I didn’t really feel that right about it. To me, I was getting paid to provide uh, fire protection and EMS services to the city and citizens of College Station. And I, and I always
kept that in my mind. I felt, I’m going to do that, give them the best protection that I can, with what I got and for the least amount of tax dollars it takes.
52:08 JD: Right.
52:09 DL: That’s uh. Uh. That’s the way I am. I, I just uh, even my personal life, you know. I just, I don’t like spending money that’s not necessary.
52:21 JD: Gotcha.
52:22 DL: You know, and I figured that. I mean of course the city council and the city managers wouldn’t agree with that. And I just like when. I don’t know how many years I asked for
a ladder truck. And finally the only way I got one I was. I went every year I would come up with that. And back then it was about $600,000, a lot of money. And I go before the city
council and tell them you know well. They’d question me, “Why do you need that? Why? The only place that’s got tall buildings is over on campus you know.” And all kinds of different
things. I said, “Well,” I said, “There’s a lot of two-story buildings that we could really use it on too. Apartments and so forth.” I said, you know, and they’d really get on me. I
said, I said, you know, “Doesn’t matter to me. You hired me to tell you what I think we need. This is what we need. If you don’t want to buy it, that’s fine with me. You know.”
53:23: JD: There is that. The old purse strings.
53:26: DL: And it turned it. They didn’t want that responsibility.
53:28: JD: Ahhh. Ahh.
53:31: DL: I was just telling them you know, probably be more headaches for me you know. But I think we need, we needed it, probably asked for it. And I always did that when I asked
for equipment. So many of them would ask for double of what they need.
53:47: JD: Hoping to get half of it?
53:48: DL: Hoped to get half of it, you know. And I never would. I put in exactly what I thought we needed. And I mean, it’s, it’s up to me that way I look at it to tell them what I
think we need. Wasn’t right or wrong, that’s what I thought. And if they deemed it, they could give it to me fine. If not I’d do the best I can with what I got. And that’s the way I’ve
always done it. And they never did try to look at me because they knew that.
54:20: JD: Right.
54:20: DL: Some of the new council as they changed would question it probably, you know. Does it really need it because everybody else asked for more you know. And no, and the other
ones’ so far he’s told us he needed it, he needed it.
54:37: JD: Yeah.
54:38: DL: You know, I hope I had that reputation because that’s what I meant to do.
54:44 JD: Right. So you eventually got a ladder truck.
54:51: DL: Yeah. And that was hard too. I mean, we got that thing in and was sitting up training for it. I had everybody in the classroom training and had a guy go out on the truck
to get it set up for us. And he stuck in a seventy-two hundred volt line right by the station.
55:12: JD: [Laughs]
55:14: DL: Uh, I mean there was out of service right after that because we had one of those big turn tables operated on ball bearings and when they arched, it messed them up.
55:26 JD: Welded them I bet.
55:27 DL: Yeah. To go back all the way to American. Apple, Appleton, Wisconsin. And then you talk about [chuckle]
55:37 JD: Yeah.
55:38 DL: When I had to go to council and tell them about what happened.
55:39: JD: What happened. Shoot.
55:42: DL: I mean, they, we had insurance thank God on it. But still it was, we was out of a truck for a long time.
55:48 JD: Hmm-hmm. A brand new truck that got… [chuckle]
55:51 DL: Yeah, just going through training on it. And I mean, we were real lucky that it happened when it did when the only guy that was setting it up happened to hit the line, it’s
hard to judge. You take a hundred-foot where exactly those lines are and when he hit it, he was on the truck, on the turn table. Of course the outriggers were down. So that’s where
the current went. So that it didn’t get him. If it had been five minutes later every fireman we had would have been touching that truck somewhere and I mean, that, that’s how damn close
it was.
56:34 JD: Yeah, I bet that was uh, a good training moment. [chuckle] Be careful, this thing make, will cause some real problems.
56:41 DL: Well, we, I mean, that’s part of the training. You know, you don’t. You got to be careful of electrical lines and stuff. But.
56:46: JD: Yeah. Shoot.
56:48 DL: I mean just five minutes later and just about all the firemen would have been either leaning against it or standing by it or something and, and it could have killed every one
of them.
57:01: JD: Wow.
57:02 DL: They had put a, I mean so I tell thankful that it did that although it was hard for me to swallow but uh, but better than losing a life over.
57:13: JD: Yeah, yeah.
57:14: DL: You know.
57:15: JD: Wow. About when did you get the ladder truck you think?
57:17: DL: I don’t know.
57:19: JD: Well, you, well decade. Eighties, seventies.
57:22 DL: Yeah, other than the. I think it was in the eighties or so.
57:29: JD: Yeah it’s not in this picture. Right. Um, how closely did you all work with the city of Bryan? I know there is mutual agreements, aid agreements is what they’re called now.
I assume they’ve been in place for quite a while.
57:39: DL: Well, no. We didn’t have anything really written that much on it. It wasn’t automatic responses. It was on uh, what we called the common vice-versa. We didn’t have automatic
responses where they’d both respond to certain areas like they do now.
57:59: JD: Right. Gotcha.
58:01: DL: If we need them, we’d call. If they need us, they’d call us.
58:04 JD: Did you know their chief pretty well? Did you have a good working relationship?
58:06: DL: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.
58:07: JD: Yeah, okay so these are people you knew personally.
58:09: DL: Yeah, uh, ones now, no. But back then, oh yeah. Yeah, we’d, we would stay in close contact with each other all the time, talking it over a cup of coffee or whatever. We know
what each other’s doing.
58:24: JD: Right.
58:25: DL: Pretty well.
58:25: JD: Was, did they have, have a better staff and better equipped department?
58:30: DL: Well they’d been in business so much longer.
58:32: JD: Right.
58:32: DL: Yeah. Yeah, they had a lot more equipment. Some of it was old and stuff but the city already was, used to putting so much money for fire protection and they had a lot more
people, you know, than what we did. But. And of course at that time they were bigger than College Station, population-wise.
58:55: JD: Right, right.
58:56: DL: That’s all changed now.
58:57: JD: Yes it has. Where did most of your fire fighters come from? Your recruits and all these guys you hired? Were they locals? College students?
59:05: DL: I’d say it about equal between other cities in Texas versus College Station, Bryan. Uh, it might have been a few more from local. When I say that, Brazos County. More local
than it was from out of town. I got a whole bunch of them one time from Round Rock area and Georgetown. Those two cities provided me with quite a few. They were all these, uh, Boy Scout
leaders and stuff over there. They were real big into that. And, uh, you know what’s weird about that is uh, the ones I had here, I don’t know how many of them I hired, they ended up
being fire chiefs in other places. That made me feel good.
59:56: JD: Yeah.
59:57: DL: Didn’t like it because then I’d lose them. But I, I felt good that they felt that good about them, being the training and everything.
1:00:07: JD: Why do you think it is that they ended up, lots of them, becoming fire chiefs? Just something you did particularly?
1:00:12 DL: No, not particular. Just I, I don’t know. I mean I, I didn’t know what kind of or how much training other departments were doing and stuff. I don’t know, I was more focused
on College Station. But I guess they just had initiative and a want-to to better themselves.
1:00:35: JD: Hiring good people.
1:00:35: DL: And stuff. Yeah. Like many of them, you know, went off to be fire chiefs.
1:00:46: JD: Right.
1:00:47: DL: Not that they’re still there probably, but, but very seldom. I got, I’m thinking back when I was chief five years was about max any fire chiefs stayed in one place.
1:00:57: JD: Five years?
1:00:58: DL: Paid, paid chief.
1:01:00: JD: Right. Right. Um.
1:01:02: DL: Look how many went through since I left in ’90. I can’t even name them all.
1:01:07: JD: Yeah, there was a lot. A whole bunch.
1:01:08: DL: And most of them are all where they hired consultant firms to go look for somebody which I, I never, uh. I always thought you ought to try local and take care of your own
people and give them some initiative to do it. And they did do it the last couple of times here. Eric Hurt and then one, I forgot who it was. That [David] Giordano was seat for a while.
Uh. There was another one too. But they, they did get some local ones this last time which I was glad to see.
1:01:42: JD: Yeah. How did you recruit firefighters? Did you specifically target folks or certain areas or was it just word of mouth?
1:01:48: DL: No, we just put, put out the word in an ad, you know around the deals in the paper, wanted, and they’d just start showing up. Most of it word of mouth I think.
1:02:03: JD: Yeah.
1:02:04: DL: And anything. Did you, do you know a Joe Don Warren?
1:02:07: JD: I met him.
1:02:08: DL: That big, old guy?
1:02:08: JD: Yeah. Yeah.
1:02:09 DL: He come by to tell me you wanted to talk.
1:02:11: JD: Yeah, yeah.
1:02:13: DL: But uh, he tickled me. He, I called his mother. He had applied, you know, and I called up there to try to set up, you know I wanted to talk to him, we were gonna set up
a time for the interviews and stuff. And she said, “Well oh, oh, Joe, Joe Don ain’t here right now.” His momma would say you know. “He’s on the tractor plowing.” I said, “Okay.” I said,
“Well just tell him to call Chief Landua at College Station when he gets a chance.” “I sure will,” you know. So now that Joe Don had been in there, he’s a Battalion Chief, you know,
and I’d always tease him about that. And he was, and he’d tell you too. I said, “Joe Don where would you be if I wouldn’t have pulled you off that John Deer tractor?” You know, I’d
give him a hard time about it. [Laughs]
1:03:02: JD [Laughs]
1:03:03: DL: That’s where he was. But I’ll never forget that though, “He’s on the tractor plowing.”
1:03:08: JD: Hmm-hmm.
1:03:10: DL: But there was a lot of them like that. That just uh, I don’t know I always felt real good about being able to read people as far as you know, what type of person they were.
1:03:24: JD: Right. I guess in your business you need to be able to, to trust the person you’re working with.
1:03:30: DL: Yeah, oh yeah. Well that and you know, how they fit in and what’s, you know, how, how they think you know. Nowadays I don’t know how in the world they do it. I mean there’s
so many, so many people now kids and stuff. They, everything, I think everything’s been given to them. A lot of them and it, it doesn’t mean anything. Somebody gives you anything, anything
you want you know, it doesn’t, it doesn’t really mean a damn thing.
1:04:02: JD: Right.
1:04:03: DL: If you don’t earn it.
1:04:04: JD: Right.
1:04:06: DL: It don’t mean nothing. I mean that’s my opinion. I know I had earned everything and it makes you, you know, stop and think you know. And I appreciate things.
1:04:19: JD: Appreciate. Right.
1:04:21: DL: So and my kids, the same way. Two daughters and I instilled in them you know, work habits and stuff and it, it’s, it’s worked, you know, so far.
1:04:33: JD: Right. Did all your new recruits go to the Brayton Fire Field for their training?
1:04:40: DL: Yeah. Yeah.
1:04:42: JD: Yeah.
1:04:43: DL: If they weren’t certified before.
1:04:44: JD: Right. Did you prefer to higher people who were already certified? Or did you like bringing them up on your own?
1:04:48 DL: I did because the cost of money and getting immediate use out of them because all that training school. Uh, you don’t have use of them for x-number of weeks. So yeah, if
I could get one certified with, I don’t know, I kinda had a deal worked out on hiring procedures and stuff and you know, they get so-and-so many points for this and so many points for
that. So many of them, the departments, would go on strictly by what they make on their written exam. And I would only count that in those, as part of it. You have the other part too.
But it’s just like promotions and stuff, I always went by not only the exams but also on the merits of the years they were there. And I’d give them a point on top of everything for
each year of service. And tried to encourage them to, and to stay with it. And it where it meant something.
1:05:55: JD: Right. Right.
1:05:57: DL: You know, I’ve had some that were excellent on exams but weren’t your, I guess, your best employees. Some of them that had trouble with exams were some of the better employees
sometime. So it’s not always a one-way deal and I, I always felt years of service means something. And I still think it should.
1:06:28: JD: Um, I read that um, College Station was one of the first cities to incorporate the use of 911 and that uh, I forget which mayor it was.
1:06:37: DL: Mayor D.A. Andy Anderson.
1:06:38: JD: That’s right. Andy Anderson. That’s right. Um, I. I don’t know a whole lot about how that was implemented country-wide, but how did it change the way you all did things?
Having 911 in the community?
1:06:51: DL: Well. To me it was a great idea. To have one number people can call and handle any type of emergency. Before you’d have to have one for ambulance service, one for fire,
one for police, one for sheriff, you know. And you, you’re having an emergency that’s, you get easily, a little. I think it right, it start with and then having to look up a number.
And so I thought it was a great idea when Mayor Anderson talked to me about that. I said, “Yeah, I think it’s great.” I don’t think. As far as I know, we were the first city in the
state of Texas to implement that.
1:07:39: JD: No kidding?
1:07:41: DL: I mean Verizon, the local telephone company was even trying to figure out how to work all this, how they could do it.
1:07:50: JD: It was that early huh?
[phone rings]
1:07:58: DL: I give the mayor a lot of credit for that. He really pushed that. He was determined to do that. And by George, we did it. And I mean it was set up pretty good for us because
we had the same dispatcher for College Station Police and College Station Fire. So you know, no matter what the emergency was, she’d just have to give it to the proper deal. So we,
we had that and then it after that it just started mushrooming. You know, everybody starting to go with it. And now it’s nation-wide.
1:08:36: JD: Right, right, right.
1:08:40: DL: But he needs to get credit for that I think. He, he really pushed it.
1:08:46: JD: Um. I saw a news article and I was talking with um, Bob Holzweiss he’s supervisory archivist over at the Bush Library archive. He got his Ph.D. in History at A&M. And I,
I did some work with him. He was looking into, he’s big on trains, and he was looking into, I guess, in ’82 a boxcar full of beer fell off the tracks crossing University (Rd.) and
there was a news article about it. And, and I thought that was kinda, kinda an interesting story. I guess it happened late at night. Do you remember that incident? About all the Aggies
running out trying to get free beer and.
1:09:22: DL: I, I do, but I don’t. I don’t, I didn’t go out to it I don’t think. I can’t, I can’t remember on that, that much. I remember hearing about it and stuff but I don’t think
I. No. I remember several train cars we had.
1:09:42: JD: Oh yeah?
1:09:42: DL: Some were pretty close calls. But, uh, you know. I mean we were real fortunate. We had some really high explosive stuff derail right there by Kyle Field.
1:09:55: JD: Really?
1:09:56: DL: And just lucky they didn’t turn over. You know I always worried about that.
1:10:02: JD: Yeah with the trains pulling right through.
1:10:04: DL: With that thing full of, it would have been full, the stands and stuff. Look how many people could hit. I still worry about that. I don’t remember the drinking all the beers.
They’ve done just about everything but I don’t recall that particular one.
1:10:17: JD: [chuckles] Okay. What would you say would you remember as like the biggest fire or the biggest emergency you had to deal with? Either with A&M or with, when you were with
the city. What really stood out to you? You, you already talked about Lincoln High School. Is there, is there another one that really popped out?
1:10:34: DL: Well yeah. Really the, the school as far as uh, from a fireman’s stand point wasn’t that big of a deal.
1:10:47: JD: It was just the matter of containing it?
1:10:48: DL: The repercussions of the fire was the biggest thing. I mean it wasn’t nothing to, to save other than keeping it from spreading. You know, so it’s not uh, that big of deal.
I guess, about the biggest one I can remember that there wasn’t no, that much fire fighting going on about it at all but we had one out there that used to be a chemical plant right
across from uh, well Luther Street, where across the railroad track there was a big chemical plant there. And the storage, big Quonset huts that were filled with fifty-five gallon barrels
of chemicals, pesticides, etc. They had some big tankers up on concrete pillars that was there too you know, and that thing was going. I’ll never forget that. I lived about two blocks
from there. So I’ll never forget that first old ‘31 truck coming up there. We used to have to drive up over the railroad tracks to get to it. And got about halfway up that thing. But
that thing [chuckle]. And, I’m saying that thing started blowing up and they’d just go out of sight. It’d be from, taking sheet metal with them barrels and just go. You’d see them blow
them, just go way.
1:12:18: JD: Wow.
1:12:19: DL: Out of sight. And the, the, the fireman driving the thing, pushes the clutch in, [imitates firetruck sound]. Back! We get to the back down on Wellborn Road there and that’s
as close as we got to it. I mean there it, it burned the screen around there and metal and stuff off of it, all the screen doors and windows and stuff back then all disintegrated. That
was probably the most, could have been the most dangerous thing other than railroad tankers and stuff. But.
1:12:55: JD: So that was when you were with the college? Or with the university?
1:12:58 DL: Yeah.
1:12:58: JD: Yeah.
1:13:04: DL: Oh, we had a lot of pretty good fires but nothing... I mean it was a whole bunch of them about the same category. I can’t really pick one out right now where apartments
and stuff like that, you get pretty ratty but.
1:13:20: JD: Yeah. Did you ever lose a firefighter?
1:13:25: DL: Uh. After. He was one of our firefighters. He went to the city of Bryan fire department and I lost one uh, on the, it was just after fire but they called College Station
too. And then we lost one of my ex-fireman. One from Bryan, Fireman Lopez. Richard Lopez. And then, and then one of my volunteer out here on, I guess it was on Holleman, right around
Phoenix or one of those streets, down there. And uh, they were in there, went in on a hose line like they’re trained to do and they were trying, well, the people outside were saying
there was a woman in there, woman in there. And the thing was full-bloom. Oh they went, took a hose in, him and another fireman. And he got in there and somehow he let go of that hose.
Well you can’t see nothing, you know and, and your whole lifeline’s that hose to follow out of there. Well somehow he got off of that hose somehow and. You know what, what happened.
They finally heard him, some firemen on the back of the house, heard him in there and they busted down the back door and grabbed him. And he, he didn’t die but he went through hell.
I had him out, just you know, skin was just hanging on the ground pulling out of there. And that, that was terrible. He was studying to be a vet, veterinarian. And, so that, I mean
he went through all kinds of stuff at the burn center trying to get use back of you know his. I don’t know if he ever got full use. I’ve lost contact after the years. With his fingers
and stuff, or his surgeries and stuff. But me having to go tell his wife that. I’ll never forget that.
1:15:34: JD: About when was that?
1:15:36: DL: I don’t know.
1:15:39: JD: Did you guys have respirators by that point? Air tanks and stuff?
1:15:41: DL: Yeah.
1:15:41: JD: Yeah. Okay. You said going inside like that, my gosh I can’t imagine.
1:15:46: DL: Yeah.
1:15:46: JD: As you were saying before, eating smoke quite literally.
1:15:49: DL: Yeah.
1:15:49: JD: Yeah. Another not so fun topic but Bonfire. So this was nine years after you retired.
1:15:56: DL: Right.
1:15:58: JD: Had you had any issues before with Bonfire that you all dealt with? That, did, did. I mean I know things happened from time to time but.
1:16:05: DL: Right.
1:16:06: JD: It, it seems like this was one of those things that was probably pretty high on your list of, okay every year this is something we’re going to have to worry about.
1:16:13: DL: Oh yeah. Well we always, every year we uh tried to prepare for it the best we could as far as blocking off streets and having everybody on duty and, and working and every
truck unit we had, we put out in different areas wherever the wind was blowing because it was blowing out of the north, which it normally was, it was putting all the embers back this
way.
1:16:38: JD: Yeah.
1:16:38: And south. And of course you got, you know some houses, some of which got (wood shingles?) some didn’t. Some of the gutters full of leaves and stuff, depending a lot on whether
they’re dry or drizzling or whatever. Every year, you didn’t know, you just had to prepare for the worst. So we would do, do that and just try to catch some that would happen quick,
falling embers and stuff. It was always a headache. And a long drawn out affair. You know, all night and stuff. And, but we, we had a few fires get started on us where ember would fly
into a garage or something and get going you know. But we really were lucky, knock on wood, that we didn’t completely, you know, burn down nothing. Not that I can remember anyway. But
we, mainly because of preparation and getting ready for it. At times when the wind was out of the south, it would put people on the buildings on campus on top because they had a type
of roof on. Some of those of, had, was that sprayed on foam and insulation like Dunkin hall, some of that. And so, you know with that way. The biggest worry for me then was it was out
of the north, depending on how fast and everything. But, we’re pretty. I only missed one, of the bonfires, while I was there. Then, that, I was in the hospital in Austin. Brackenridge.
And I missed that but that was the only one I ever missed of being there. Yeah.
1:18:21: JD: Yeah. So from the early sixties all the way till you retired. You were dealing with every one.
1:18:27 DL: Till I retired. Yeah, every year we, you know, planned on what we were going to do and get everybody working and stuff. But nothing like what, what they had, what that collapse
on them.
1:18:44: JD: Yeah. I, I, you know, I’m from Colorado originally. And, and I don’t remember Bonfire but I think that’s because Columbine [Colorado school shooting] happened that spring.
And that, I think that’s what, that just kind of dominated, you know, my scope of world events at the time.
1:18:56: DL: Right.
1:18:58: JD: I was a freshman in high school. I went to college with a couple of guys who were in Columbine, in, in the library when the shooting happened, oh no, cafeteria. Anyway.
As an outsider, so, I’m an Aggie now. I’m here for graduate school. I didn’t grow up in, and Bonfire was long gone by the time I got here. It seems to me that this is. It, it. The odds
are that that was going to happened eventually. And I, it makes me wonder how many folks were sitting there going, “Is this the year something bad is going to happen?” It, it seems
like they had such good luck for so long. And it got bigger and bigger and bigger. It, it’s just kind of amazing that there wasn’t a big thing.
1:19:37: DL: You know, I don’t know. I always thought, “Well they, they got engineers on it. They know how to keep it from doing that.” But.
1:19:47: JD: I know it leaned a couple of times and had to be rebuilt once or twice.
1:19:50: DL: Right. Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean it was always that chance. But hell, look how many people, firemen get hurt out there, not firemen, the guys working on the thing.
1:20:03: JD: On stack, yeah.
1:20:05: DL: Out there in the cutting areas and stuff. I mean you know, we used to have I think, more at that than we did at the stack.
1:20:13: JD: Really?
1:20:14: DL: Far as injuries go.
1:20:15: JD: Sure. Yeah with the axes and saws and log sawing and all that stuff. Yeah.
1:20:21: DL: I don’t know, I mean, I don’t how many years they had it without any incident but it only takes one.
1:20:28: JD: Right. Right, yeah. As you probably know they do a student bonfire now off campus. Totally redesigned and reengineered. It’s never supposed to change that. But it doesn’t
look like they’re going to get it back on campus. That’s such a liability. But I was talking with Chief [Thomas] Goehl and he was saying, he was the incident commander apparently, at
bonfire, when it fell. And he said one of the, the eeriest things or I guess something that really stuck out to him was when he heading to it, all the lights were out
because the power, or the lights had been knocked down when the stack fell. So it was just completely dark. Which again I, I never got to experience what it was like so, but apparently
for him, that was, you know, that was a really significant difference. Something that he really noticed instantly. “Oh man, it’s dark so I’m definitely, you know.” Were you involved
at any point? I, I imagine as soon as you got up in the morning that, that it was all over the news so I imagine as a, as a former fire chief you were like, “Oh man.”
1:21:31: DL: Yeah. I, I’m glad I wasn’t there. [chuckle] Yeah.
1:21:35: JD: Yeah, geez. Did uh, um, did you guys prepare at all for something, a catastrophe that big? When you were training or…?
1:21:43: DL: For it falling?
1:21:45: JD: Or, or falling. Or maybe you know, something just that level of catastrophe I guess. I mean it was probably the biggest thing they’ve ever dealt with.
1:21:52: DL: Biggest thing I, I used to worry about was, of course after it was lit, where the embers were going. And the other thing was when they were getting ready to light it with
all that fuel they dumped it on there. I was worried about that. Once it got lit and stuff, it was kind of one relief. Then you looked at the other part, of the embers and stuff like
that. I now, I, we never did, that I know of, that I remember, train for, for that. Which people that were training and rescue but I mean that.
1:22:38: JD: Yeah, that was pretty inconceivable.
1:22:39: DL: Yeah, yeah at that deal, I, I don’t know. I mean you know, with, with that, you’re going to have to have an awful lot of heavy equipment around and stuff to, to do anything.
I mean really beneficial I would say. But having all. I, I, I wouldn’t. I never even. I didn’t want to think about the thing collapsing. I always thought they had that pretty well secured
but I don’t know what happened with this last one. I mean when it happened. Do, did you ever remember what really?
1:23:14: JD: I, I read some of the reports Bart Humphries put together that the, the department’s report. I’ve read that. It’s been a little bit, a little while, but as far as I understand
the center pole was weak. It had been damaged and, when they were putting the stack up if I remember correctly. And they, they assumed that that might have been the problem. So that,
that the center pole was unstable at some point and then you know, it gave way. So I’m guessing which you, you know. It, it, I guess it could have happened at any time. I mean, as soon
as they started doing the wedding cake design, the layers of it, that’s what you deal with. I, I remember seeing a lot of old pictures of it just being a heap of wood. You know, in
the thirties or whatever.
1:24:01: DL: Right. Right. It probably was safer.
1:24:03: JD: Yeah. Well yeah. You know what, probably.
1:24:06: DL: Trying to make it pretty.
1:24:06: JD: Hmm-hmm. Once they start stacking it up I, I guess your odds are something could happen. Makes you think a lot about institutional tradition, or institutional, what’s the
word I’m looking for here? It’s just what we’ve always done. It’s worked out for us every time.
1:24:24: DL: Tradition.
1:24:25: JD: They’re being safe. It, as safe as they can. But you know, in the end it seems like some things just can’t be avoided I guess. Were you guys there when it was lit? Was,
was there a firefighter there when the stack was lit?
1:24:41: DL: Oh yeah. We were all in place.
1:24:43: JD: Yeah.
1:24:44: DL: Mainly because of the fact that I felt that when they were getting ready to light it, I mean they, I don’t know how many thousands of gallons of diesel and stuff they put
on there. And something could happen then and so we you know, until the torches got thrown and everybody looked like nobody hollering that they were…
1:25:02: JD: [chuckles] Were on fire?
1:25:04: DL: You know got burned or anything you know. They pretty well needed to stay away from the heat itself but back them up so that wasn’t too much of a problem. I always worried
about when it fell because you know, you would hope, knowing A&M, they ought to know when to move away but a lot of times they don’t. And get in trouble sometime when it fall and it
kind of shatters stuff around. But most of the time it would just lay down pretty, pretty nice. Give them time to get out of the way you know.
1:25:42: JD: Right.
1:25:43: DL: It, it. You, you never know what Aggies gonna do you know?
1:25:45: JD: [laughs]. Aggies are gonna be Aggies that’s for sure.
1:25:46: DL: [laughs]
1:25:48: JD: Shoot. Yeah.
1:25:51: DL: I can’t really point out one over the other as far as instances. I mean I recall so many of them.
1:26:01: JD: Right.
1:26:02: DL: Some I’d like to forget about.
1:26:03: JD: Yeah. Sure.
1:26:04: But I don’t. I, I’m sure I’m forgetting, some of it will get back to me. I, I’ve always worried about, you know apartments and stuff. I’ll look at all the new ones, they’re
built now. And I worry to death about that, all those. I meant to ask, I will have to do that. I always try to stay away from the fire department after I retired because it just, probably
not good for an ex-chief to go in there. And you might have different opinions and stuff. You know and the little chief here, whoever he is got enough problems without an ex coming
in there.
1:26:50: JD: Stirring the pot.
1:26:51:DL: Making statements. Yeah. So I always try to stay away but it was sure is hard to do you know. I spent my life for so many years.
1:27:02: JD: Yeah.
1:27:03: DL: So I, I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to find out if the fire codes allow. It looked like that one on University and Texas was just wood all the way up on that thing.
1:27:13: JD: Yeah. I noticed that too.
1:27:14:DL: And I, I don’t know. I mean maybe there’s no fire code against it. I don’t remember.
1:27:25: JD: Huh.
1:27:26: DL: I often wondered about that.
1:27:28: JD: Yeah.
1:27:29: DL: Oh and one thing I’m real proud of is during my term there we got the sprinkler ordinance through.
1:27:39: JD: For commercial?
1:27:40: DL: Yeah.
1:27:40: JD: Yeah.
1:27:41: DL: I’m proud of that. Because I tell you that, that’s the only chance you got in some of these big buildings and stuff. That’s it, that’s the only thing.
1:27:50: JD: Yeah. When an ordinance would go through for code, does it apply retroactively to places?
1:27:58: DL: Most of the time, no.
1:28:00: JD: Okay. But I know there’s a whole bunch of buildings at A&M that have, what seems to be.
1:28:05: DL: A&M know, they don’t have to do nothing.
1:28:07: JD: Yeah. [chuckle].
1:28:08: DL: Right.
1:28:09: JD: Good point.
1:28:10: DL: Do as I say, not as I do.
1:28:11: JD: Right.
1:28:12: DL: I, I’d keep. That’s the only thing that kinda got me when I was fire marshal over there for those years. Um. I mean, you look up at those southern building codes and stuff
and you try to write it up and all I could do was suggest. And they didn’t have to do nothing.
1:28:28: JD: Huh.
1:28:30: DL: I don’t know if that’s changed or not. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter now. But really I think as far as the fire department over all, that sprinkler ordinance is one of
the most important things that we got it in, when we got it in. We got it passed, which wasn’t easy at all. To get that thing in because you had all you know, developers and stuff fighting
you. Insurance companies, believe it or not.
1:28:58: JD: Really? Oh just because potential for flood damage? And water damage? If, if something happened to it or.
1:29:03: DL: No. Didn’t say that. But the statistics don’t show that. It’s mostly. Well I remember something. But anyway. I, I don’t want to stir stuff on that. I’m glad it got through
when it did because look how much the city’s grown since that. And at least it was in place early you know.
1:29:30 JD: You know about when?
1:29:33: DL: Uh, I, uh I can’t tell you. I have no idea. I, I’m pretty sure it was seventies.
1:29:40: JD: Sometime between ’73 and ’90. Or seventies.
1:29:41: DL: No, I think. Probably the latter or, or part of seventies or early eighties. I’m guessing. But that, that wasn’t an easy chore because you know, they always said, “Oh that’s
going to make me move to Bryan and build over there,” you know. That type of thing, yeah.
1:30:01: JD: Wow. No that’s a good point because particularly the growth from the seventies forward. Seventies really when, as far as I understand, when things really started taking
off in the seventies.
1:30:11: DL: That’s right. Yeah.
1:30: 12: JD: Catching it just before it big. Yeah.
1:30:14: DL: Really though you take you know from. Uh, oh. ’62 to ’73. I’ll say ten, ten years there, it was growing from seventeen, percentage wise, to fifty something. Over fifty.
That’s pretty big growth too. You know? I don’t know what percent that would be to the fifty-something to, what are we at now? Hundred and?
1:30:46: JD: Just over a hundred.
1:30:47: DL: Just over a hundred. That would be what?
1:30:50: JD: Well shoot, we hit a hundred last February.
1:30:51: DL: Right.
1:30:52: JD: So yeah, we, we. Yeah, but we’re a little over a hundred now for sure.
1:30:57: DL: So that’d be like fifty and if you take ’62 to ’73. Another ten years that’s seventeen and seventeen, that’d be thirty-four. Well it was actually more growth, more percentage
wise.
1:31:08: JD: Percentage-wise, right.
1:31:09: DL: Than it is now. I, I swear to god. I used to know where every nook and creek, every street. Of course I was out of town for sixteen years but I mean it grew. I can’t hardly
believe it. I wouldn’t even know what half the damn new streets are. I know the old ones.
1:31:29: JD: You all moved away after you retired?
1:31:30: DL: Yeah. Moved down to. I had a little farm down there in Washington County. Pretty close to Lake Somerville. Back in there. A little 88 acres down there. We put a double-wide
down there and moved down there and I played like I was farming and ranching for a while and. For sixteen years in fact. And one of my daughters lives down there now and I got her a
double-wide she’s living in. So I raised two grandkids down there. My wife wouldn’t let me sell this [the house in College Station], I rented it out. After we left, I kept it but it
was our security blanket. And sure enough I’m glad she talked me into that. But it’s an old house, fifty years old but it’s perfect for us. It’s a good location.
1:32:27: JD: Oh great location. I was driving over here and I was like, “Wow. This is.”
1:32:31: DL: Oh you’d be surprised how many wanting to buy. You know, especially. And they’re getting outrageous prices for them with that historical district over here and stuff. Man,
I don’t know. But I, I’m glad we kept it. It, it’s good enough for us. Only thing I ever wanted was a dry place and cool and warm to lay my head. That’s all that’s important.
1:32:57: JD: Right. Yeah. Exactly.
1:32:59: DL: I never was into show and tell.
1:33:01: JD: Yeah. Yeah.
1:33:03:DL: Well, I got one daughter that is not into show and tell at all and the other is all show and tell. And I thought. But everybody’s got their own life.
1:33:16: JD: Right. One last thing that popped into mind. With all the stations going up now, you know, fire station six just being what, a year and a half old or two years old. How
many were built, so you were in the original station right there by city hall. And then by the time you left in ’90, how many did, were built?
1:33:33: DL: Just one.
1:33:34: JD: Just one was built?
1:33:35: DL: Yeah and one, uh, other was in the making so to speak. That was a remodel job. [chuckle]. At the original there.
1:33:44: JD: Uh-huh. The one at city hall.
1:33:46: DL: That’s all different. Now it was remodeled then we built, had station two built out there. And then one, we had one scheduled for Barron Road. And at that point discussions
about the airport. But that was still being, kinda worked with the university and the airport and stuff on whether we were gonna, the city was gonna put one out there.
1:34:15: JD: Right, right.
1:34:16: DL: But, I, I don’t think they ever had the money set aside for it but the one on Barron Road went through the process involved and stuff you know. That was only one. Only two
that was manned was one and two.
1:34:32: JD: Did uh, were you, were you needing more stations? Did you, was that just like your equipment and your, your staff, you were always needing to, to grow in stations?
1:34:41: DL: Yeah it was. But then you have to, you know look at what you want. You know, you know, you need to put in all these stations. But then you’re talking about that’s a one-time
cost, that’s one thing. But if you’re going to have it then you got to have the equipment, which maybe, maybe not have to be replaced every five, ten years. Whatever. And on top of
that manning it. That’s the biggest cost every year. You know, and how much time, response time is that going to save you or not. Whether, you know, whether you want to do it or not.
I mean sure, I always wanted to. But could you really justify it. You know, it’s. Like I told you I always look at, I had to justify it to myself before I could try to sell it. I mean
they got stations now you know, around, and, and that, that’s a good thing. I’m not saying it uh, ain’t. I think it’s, I’m a little shocked at how much they spend on that station out
there.
1:35:55: JD: Have you been out to station six?
1:35:57: DL: I was invited, I didn’t go.
1:36:00: JD: It’s pretty. It, it is.
1:36:01: DL: It oughta be.
1:36:02: JD: It is really, for the money. It is a really pretty deal. I’ve never seen such a fancy place.
1:36:02: DL: For being a fire chief, I like it. As a citizen, I, I can’t see it.
1:36:10: JD: Hmm, yeah. Yeah.
1:36:12: DL: You know.
1:36:13: JD: It won design awards and everything. [chuckle]
1:36:17: DL: Well I mean, I, I believe it. Of course when I say something like that. They say, “Well we got a deal in there.” For having a, a you know, schooling and stuff too, you know.
Room for that. I don’t know, I haven’t been in there. But it just seems a little, extravagant to me.
1:36:39: JD: Yeah. I could see that. Like I said it’s the fanciest one I’ve ever seen. [chuckle]
1:36:43: DL: Yeah, yeah. Then again it, when you want show and tell or what you know.
1:36:48: JD: Right, right. Huh.
1:36:49: DL: Yeah, I don’t, I don’t know.
1:36:52: JD: Right.
1:36:54: DL: I mean, that’s not my problem anymore except the taxes I pay.
1:36:56: JD: [laughs] Right. Right. Yeah, that’s about it. Well that’s about all I had for you. I, I’m realizing now that we’re going on about two hours. I didn’t mean to take too much
of your time.
1:37:05: DL: Oh, oh, no problem.
1:37:08: JD: Alright.
1:37:08: DL: I was glad to talk to you.
1:37:10: JD: Oh, I did have a question real quick about um. [Pulls out photograph] Okay, where was this? This was supposed to be the police station and the municipal court, but I don’t
recognize that building or I’m not sure where it is. Is that?
1:37:29 DL: There’s a maintenance uh. Maintenance shop still over there on uh, what’s that name? Where’s the garbage and stuff uh, what’s that street?
1:37:48: JD: Oh, uh Krenek Tap?
1:37:50: DL: Krenek Tap.
1:37:51: JD: Yeah.
1:37:51: DL: Is, you know you got the police station?
1:37:54: JD: Yeah the police station’s over there.
1:37:55: DL: And the next thing was a garage at one time. Is that still a garage?
1:37:58: JD: There is a garage. I don’t know if it was the one you’re thinking of.
1:38:03: DL: Well there’s one where they did maintenance.
1:38:04: JD: Okay.
1:38:05: DL: And.
1:38:05: JD: You think it was over there on Krenek Tap?
1:38:06: DL: This was right over behind the police department.
1:38:11: JD: Over off Krenek Tap?
1:38:11: DL: Yeah.
1:38:12: JD: Okay, okay. Good. Right. Because obviously the design and the façade is a lot like the, the city hall and the old fire station and stuff like that so at first I thought
it was over there but.
1:38:24: DL: Yeah, this is. Uh, I think the. In this case the police station is right over here. Down there Krenek Tap looking back at Texas Avenue.
1:38:32: JD: Right, right. Okay.
1:38:33: DL: I think that’s right. I’m not positive.
1:38:35: JD: Yeah. Probably. Someone else had mentioned it might have been over there. So.
1:38:38: DL: Yeah. It’s not there no more?
1:38:39: JD: I don’t know. I haven’t been over there. I’m not sure.
1:38:41: (Mic hit)
1:38:44: JD: Is there anything else that you were thinking that you wanted to say?
1:38:48: DL: Well, no [chuckles]. No.
1:38:50: JD: Alright, well thanks a bunch.