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NV - Goldfield,Esmeralda County - c1900 - Fire Department Nozzle

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Western Americana Start Price:150.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 - 600.00 USD
NV - Goldfield,Esmeralda County - c1900 - Fire Department Nozzle
Session D is a Mail-Bid Only Auction. Absentee bids will be accepted only. No live bidding will be allowed. All winners will be contacted after the auction. BIDDING ENDS MONDAY JUNE 27 AT 5PM PACIFIC TIME!!!
Measures 18" high. Brass. Has engraved initials GFFD, for Goldfield Fire Department. Author Sally Zanjani who writes about Goldfield says that most fires there were started by defective gas stoves. She also states that the Goldfield Fire Department was very efficient in responding to and containing fires. The horses that drew the fire equipment were so well trained that at the first sound of the fire alarm, the horses "would jump their stalls without a command to take their places at the fire wagons, waiting for the harness to drop onto their backs from above" [Zanjani, 1992, 93]. Once harnessed, the horses started to gallop down the streets without being directed. Their noses led them to the fire. Not until 1923 did the city suffer a serious fire destroyed most of the town. The town that once had a fire doused by beer because it lacked water was burned by an explosion of bootlegger's still. A wind helped spread the flames from building to building and firefighters could do nothing to save the town. Zanjani records "by the time the fire had burned itself out that afternoon, twenty-five square blocks - about half the city - including some two hundred buildings in downtown and northern residential districts had burned, leaving 150 families homeless" [Zanjani, 1992, 234]. It never returned to its former glory or even to gain new breath. The town continued to die.