Apr 23, 1980

Dinner Committee for May: Joe Ratliff, Chuck Sanborn, Jay Shults, Jack Straub, Dale Taylor.

A Handpumper History, compiled by Firefighter Gerald Aus after many months of intensive and extensive investigation:
Our handpumper is believed to have been first owned by the first volunteer fire company in Sacramento, the Confidence Engine Company Number One. The Company was formed March 6, 1851. The engine may have been one of several owned by the Company during itss existance, as apparatus were freely traded among the city's volunteer companies as the need arose. It may be impossible to ever discover our handpumper's exact early history, as most records of the Sacramento volunteers were destroyed by fires and floods or lost during the transition to a paid department. Sacramento sold all of its antique fire equipment at that time to buy new steamers for the paid men.
The handpumper was purchased from the Sacramento Fire Department by General Cadwalader, a prominent Red Bluff citizen, on June 2, 1877. The engine arrived at the Red Bluff railroad station on June 9 and was tested and put in service the next day. It is said that the pumper put out a stream of water that impressed all. The machine was Red Bluff's first pumper, but its second piece of equipment, the first piece being a hook & ladder wagon purchased September 30, 1876. The handpumper became the responsibility of Red Bluff's Confidence Engine Company Number One (coincidentally, the same name as its Sacramento owner).
The handpumper became the property of the Weaverville Fire Department in 1906. It was restored in the 1950s. In 1977, while being operated at a fire show in Redding, instability was experienced and it was returned to the museum in Weaverville. In December 1979, the handpumper and an antique hose cart were taken to the California Correctional Institution at Tehachapi for restoration. Estimated completion date is October 1980.

Drills in the immediate future will include discussion of communications and chain-of-command, with practical experience at any or all of the hospital, courthouse, and mill. Also coming up is a wildland fire simulation.
For those who will be available for OES Task Force responses this summer, a special training/review session will be held May 10 at 10am at Station 1. Anyone who might be going out on OES 183 should attend this session.
Training Officer McMillan appreciates the efforts of those who suffered through the relay pumping drill April 16. He hopes each of those participating learned as much as he did!