SWITCH BOARD FOR THE FIRE LINE IS THE STORY OF A SEVEN YEAR OLD GIRLS PARTICIPATION IN MIDDLETOWN, CA 95461

Welcome-08 Middletown-08 Local_History

Switchboard for the Fire line

by: Marion McMurtry

The first call came in to the switchboard about 4 a.m. “Fire! Up on the ridge west of Anderson’s!” The caller crashed down his phone, knowing his voice would be recognized and the operator would take it from there.

That’s the way it was done in those days. The operator that night was my dad. The year was 1934, and the switchboard was a magneto outfit that occupied the front half of our house in Middletown (Lake County). Telephone operators knew their customers’ voices, numbers, and where they lived.

Professional emergency services were generally nonexistent in little mountain communities like ours. The nearest fire crew was over the mountain in Calistoga, 45 minutes away. Small town folks did for themselves.

In case of fire, the drill called for either my mother or father, since they were the live-in agents and manpower for the telephone company in Middletown, to run the two blocks over to Main Street and manually activate the siren attached to the post office wall.

As the volunteer fire fighters arrived and cranked up the fire truck, my dad would give them the location of the fire.

Out of the night they came, stumbling and pulling on their clothes as they ran: fat George Butler the butcher, my dad’s fishing buddy; skinny Les Moore the plumber with tools to repair broken equipment; Roy Simenson, agent for Standard Oil; George Noble, owner of the local saloon (it’s still there – watch for it on the right as you enter town); Ray Moody; the Hardester brothers; and even Jesse Ratchford, the attorney. Most of the men in town came out to help, except for the pastor of the community church. He and his wife turned out too, but they had their own agenda. Their little church would be where any evacuees from the fire would find sanctuary.

My mother’s job was to man the switchboard for calls coming in from the rugged back country. These calls were vital for tracking the path of the fire. But on this fateful night my mother was not there. There was no one there but me.

My dad swooped me out of bed, perched me up on the high stool in front of the board and jammed the headset down over my ears. It took him two desperate seconds to tell me, “Answer the calls you can and tell them where I am. And don’t panic!”

Then he was gone. Lights were flashing on the board and I was barely awake, but since I’d been watching my parents use the switchboard since I was a toddler I knew how to do it. I shoved the first orange plug into a lighted jack, and I was in business.

I couldn’t spell the names, but I could write down the caller’s numbers. No one had time to ask questions - the fire was all that mattered.

When my father returned he matched the numbers with names and plotted them on a map for the outside emergency equipment on its way from Napa County. Trucks and men were soon roaring off towards Cobb Mountain and the fire line.

My dad and me? We decided we’d probably better not ever tell the phone company that their emergency operator the night of the big Anderson Ridge fire was 7 years old

Reprinted from “The Muse”

The Sonoma County Museum Newsletter

March and April 2001

VOL. 15, ISSUE 2

See Vintage Pictures of MVFD at Sylvies Website

See the map of the present Fire District and find the scanner frequencies

"THE FIRE AT ANDERSON'S RIDGE"

ORVAL BRENNEN - THE HISTORY OF THE MIDDLETOWN VOLUNTEER FORE DEPARTMENT

THE HISTORY OF HOBERG'S RESORT

A YOUNG LADY'S TRIP TO SEIGLER SPRINGS

DID LILLIE LANGTRY VISIT MIDDLETOWN?

THE HISTORY OF THE MOUNTAIN MILL HOUSE AND THE MCNULTY FAMILY