It responded to its last fire call more than 100 years ago, and largely disappeared from view.

Today, following a full restoration job, it occupies a place of honor in the Fort Dodge firehouse. It is a reminder of a time when hose reels like it were key to saving lives and property when fire broke out.

Fire Chief Steve Hergenreter said it had been in storage at the Fort Museum and Frontier Village. He said he talked to museum Director Tim Morris about it. Morris, he said, “saw value in us taking it and restoring it.”

It was moved to the firehouse at 1515 Central Ave. in the spring, where it sat in the garage behind some of the modern fire trucks.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea
The name Wahkonsa Hook and Ladder is painted on the restored 1800s hose reel on display at the Fort Dodge firehouse. That unit was one of the four volunteer fire companies that protected the city in the late 1800s. The others were W.A. Berry Hook and Ladder Co., Merchants Hose Co. 1 and S.T. Meservey Engine and Hose Co. 2.

Hergenreter contacted Curt Bacon, owner of Curt Bacon Body Shop in Fort Dodge, to get his input on restoring the wooden and cast iron reel. He said Bacon volunteered his services to restore it.

It was completely taken apart and the individual pieces were taken to Bacon’s shop. As Bacon finished each piece of it, those individual components were brought back to the firehouse. The hose reel was put back together about a month ago and was placed in the recently constructed new lobby of the firehouse. Anyone walking by the north side of the building can probably see its wheels through the windows.

It consists of a reel, around which a fire hose was wrapped, mounted horizontally between two tall wheels. Those wheels may have been made in the late 1800s, but they still turn quickly and easily, as the firefighters discovered every time they had to move it. An axe and a large nozzle are mounted on its frame. A box on its front likely held spanner wrenches used to connect hose and additional nozzles.

Hergenreter said it took at least four firefighters to pull it.

There are no markings on the hose reel to show when it was built or who made it.

And while there is no truly definitive proof that the reel was used in Fort Dodge, Hergenreter found a photo from the late 1800s that apparently shows it in Fort Dodge.

He said that prior to 1879, fires in Fort Dodge were put out by bucket brigades.

In 1879, he said, Fort Dodge got its first water system when a pump station was built near the Des Moines River and water mains were extended up what is now First Avenue South, Central Avenue and First Avenue North to about 12th Street. With those water mains came hydrants, he said. Firefighting could then be done with a steady stream of water under pressure through a hoseline instead of buckets.

“This was a huge, huge change in firefighting in Fort Dodge in 1879,” Hergenreter said.

At about the same time, four volunteer fire companies were established to end the need for bucket brigades in Fort Dodge.

Those volunteer units were the Wahkonsa Hook and Ladder Co., W.A. Berry Hook and Ladder Co., Merchants Hose Co. 1, and S.T. Meservey Engine and Hose Co. 2. They operated from four firehouses across the city.

“Wahkonsa Hook & Ladder” is painted on the hose reel in honor of one of those old volunteer fire companies.

The arrival of the city’s first motorized fire truck in 1913 signaled the end for the old hose reel.