Key Number:	HS 24334
Site Name:	Old Bashaw Fire Hall
Other Names:
Site Type:	1312 - Governmental: Fire Station or Hall

Location

ATS Legal Description:

			Twp	Rge	Mer
			42	21	4

Address:	5018 - 50 Street
Number:	18
Street:	50
Avenue:	50
Other:
Town:	Bashaw
Near Town:

Media

Type	Number	Date	View	Source

Architectural

Style:
Plan Shape:	Rectangular
Storeys:	Storeys: 1
Foundation:
Superstructure:
Superstructure Cover:	Insul-brick
Roof Structure:	Flat
Roof Cover:
Exterior Codes:
Exterior:	High degree of craftsmanship in construction. Fire Hall is with a hose-drying tower, built with a 37,000 gallon, concrete water reservior beneath its floor. The only other structure on the 25' x 120' lot is a civic building constructed as a clinic behind the fire hall in c. 1954. Landscaping is non-existent.
Interior:	N/A
Environment:	Bashaw commercial district.
Condition:	In good condition, requiring only minor maintenace - painting and general clean up.
Alterations:	The large centre door has been moved off center to one side and the entire structure has been covered with asphalt insul-brick. Addition - two separate structures to the rear of the fire hall. The exterior walls and the tower are intact, but most of the doors and windows have been altered. In the 1920s when the hall was divided width-wise to accommodate the police, the front, center double-doors were moved to the side. It appears that the garage at the back of the fire hall was also added in this period. In 1957 the Village carried out extensive renovations to accommodate a new fire truck, cutting an overhead-sliding door off-center in the front of the hall, and building a wall splitting the building lengthwise. They also installed a new floor in the fire department's side, dropping it to street level, and constructed a cinder-block vault and a washroom in the police side, while the original, exterior imitation-stone tin covering was replaced with asphalt insul-brick on all the south, inside wall.

Historical

Construction:	Construction Date:
Constructed	1914/01/01
Usage:	Usage Date:
Storage Barber Shop Town fire hall and police station	1915/01/01
Owner:	Owner Date:
Village of Bashaw

Architect:	N/A
Builder:	N/A
Craftsman:	N/A
History:	It was used as a fire hall from its completion in 1915 until 1972.  The building also housed the Alberta Provincial Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Barber shop occupies part of the premises, and the remainder is used for storage. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE: Bashaw emerged relatively late in the settlement-boom period in Alberta.  Homesteaders entered the surrounding lake country after being surveyed in 1898, but it was not until the arrival of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1910 that an urban center developed.  With the area already established merchants quickly settled in the townsite laid out by Eugene Bashaw on the railway line, and by 1913 Bashaw was a village of 200 people.   Despite an economic downturn, optimism in Bashaw's future had not abated by 1914 when the Village began erecting a spacious fire hall on the main street near the centre of town.  The frame building, constructed over a 37,000 gallon, concrete water reservoir, had an impressive hose-drying tower, imitation-stone tin covering, and a roofline finished with classical detailing.  Apart from civic pride, Bashaw's residents also received a five per cent reduction in fire insurance premiums once the hall was completed. The Village grew to 433 people in 1920, but experienced slow growth until the late 1940s when its population jumped to 603, where it remained until 1956.  Throughout the period the Village provided fire protection with a five-man volunteer brigade, a part-time maintenance engineer, two fire engines, and a series of sirens on telephone poles.   The hall was used continuously by the fire department until one was built in a new location in 1972, but it had other civic functions as well. ... Looking back, the fire hall represented the first civic undertaking of the Village of Bashaw.  Built on the main street, its paramount function was protection of the town centre.  A fire brigade was almost always incapable of saving a single, burning frame building, but it usually was able to prevent a conflagration among commercial structures that could impair the town's future.   For the citizenry, size and grandeur of the fire hall symbolized the quality of protection against such disasters.  In Bashaw's case the addition of the police reinforced their association with the building, which was reflected in the number of civic meetings held there.   The 1930s brought a trend away from using the fire hall in a public fashion.  People met, but in other venues.  Although Bashaw tripled in size, by 1952 the sign of the fire hall was faded and the siding unchanged.  The sprucing-up of the building in the late fifties, meanwhile, seems to have been tied more to the presence of the new fire truck than to a renewed interest in the hall.   The Bashaw fire hall is therefore a good example of the multipurpose civic structures constructed by many Alberta urban communities prior to World War One.   ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:   The Old Bashaw Fire Hall is a relatively plain structure embellished by a wood cornice, ornate brackets and a frieze.  These classical details reflect the preference for the classical style for public buildings during the 19th and early 20th century.  It is typical of the type of multipurpose structures built by many urban centers during their early years of development.  A very similar structure was built in Strathcona in 1900.

Internal

Designation Status:	Designation Date:
Provincial Historic Resource	2009/03/11

Register:	N/A

Links

Internet:
Alberta Register of Historic Places:	4665-0645