This photo shows the historic Ashley Firehall in Ashley, North Dakota, a two-story brick building with bold red trim. The structure features two large red garage doors for fire engines, flanked by a central entry door. Above, arched windows with red frames and brick detailing add character to the façade. The top of the building bears the inscription “FIRE • CITY HALL,” reflecting its dual role as both fire station and municipal office in the past. Its sturdy design and preserved architecture make it a prominent landmark in the community.

Welcome to the historic Ashley fire hall which was restored by a grant from the State Historical Society of North Dakota, and houses impressive artifacts on the ground floor; upstairs is a meeting room, once the venue for dances and other public events. The city passed a bond issue and built the fire hall in 1912. Below it was a 75,000 gallon reservoir filled with water; a stationary engine was emplaced above the reservoir; and 4000 feet of hose carried forth by the fire wagon could reach any point in town.

How was the water to be deployed? A steam engine and pump were installed in the fire hall to pump into hoses run out to the scene of a fire--literally, run out by athletic young men pulling hose wagons into place and trailing lines of hose.

This general arrangement of a cistern dug beneath the fire hall, hoses unwound from it (perhaps for the better part of a mile) to any point in town, and organized companies of volunteer firemen bringing them into play seems to have prevailed in towns across the prairies. Historic newspapers from the 1890s record that there was a cistern under the fire hall in Devils Lake and both Bottineau and Pembina had reservoirs beneath their fire halls.

It is said that the Ashley volunteer firemen were initiated by having them climb down into the reservoir and swim its length. The Ashley fire hall reservoir was utilized for fire fighting until the 1940s, when city water lines were installed. After that, it was a storm shelter and based on the canned goods still stored there--a fallout shelter.

In June 2021, in an effort to nominate the structure for the National Register of Historic Places, Dr. Tom Isern, Professor of History and University Distinguished Professor at NDSU, Dr. Heather Fischer, Assistant Professor of Practice, Architecture and Landscape Architecture, a team of NDSU MA History students, and Ashley native, Don Kosel hosted a meeting at city hall to learn more about the history of the Ashley Firehall.

Funded in part by Humanities North Dakota, a nonprofit, independent state partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of Humanities North Dakota or the National Endowment for Humanities.