🔥📜 AUTHENTIC NEW ORLEANS FIRE DEPARTMENT HORSE-DRAWN FIREHOUSE LEDGER — 1916–1917 📜🔥
🚒🔥 Step back into the working world of the New Orleans Fire Department with this remarkable original NOFD Day Book / Station Ledger dating from October 4, 1916 through May 3, 1917. 📖🕰️ This is far more than an old book—it is a fascinating primary-source record documenting the men, horses, equipment, daily operations, and routine life of a New Orleans fire station during the horse-drawn firefighting era. 🐎🚒
📜 HISTORIC COVER & PRESERVATION 📜
🖤 The ledger features a rugged dark black pebbled hardboard cover, appropriate for a working municipal firehouse environment. The spine and corners are reinforced with deep red leather trim, accented by distinctive gold-leaf pin striping along the hinges. ✨
🏚️ The exterior displays substantial historic wear, including scuffing and areas where the original black surface coating has been lost along the edges. These condition characteristics are consistent with an artifact that was actually used in a busy working station rather than preserved as a decorative book. 🔥🚒
🏷️ A wonderfully preserved aged paper label on the front cover identifies the operational period:
📅 "From Oct 4th 1916 to May 3rd 1917."
📋 Inside is a detailed personnel directory documenting eight members of the station, with columns for Name, Title, Address, Badge Number, Fire Key, and Age. 🔍📖
🚒 Captain Jos. Stehling — Age 44
🚒 Lieutenant L.L. Trenchard — Age 47
⚙️ Engineer J.C. Catanzaro — Age 49
🔥 Stoker M. Quaid — Age 37
🐎 Driver A. Cummings — Age 24
💦 Pipeman J. Lotz — Age 44
💦 Pipeman G. Norton — Age 32
💦 Pipeman J. Vath — Age 33
🏙️ Their listed residences provide another fascinating historical dimension, with addresses corresponding to historic New Orleans streets including Philip, Second, Erato, Julia, and Felicity Streets. 🌆📜
🕰️ DAILY FIREHOUSE LIFE — 1916–1917 🕰️
✍️ The ledger's pages contain extensive handwritten entries in beautiful early-20th-century cursive, providing an extraordinary glimpse into the everyday workings of a New Orleans fire station. 🖋️📖
📞 Daily telephone tests
🤒 Sick calls
🧊 Supply deliveries and bills, including Central Ice Co.
🚒 Station operations
🐎 Horse conditions and activities
⚡ Telegraph and alarm-system testing
🔥 Emergency responses and firehouse activity
🐎🔥 THE HORSE-DRAWN FIRE DEPARTMENT 🔥🐎
⭐ One of the most fascinating aspects of this ledger is its documentation of the horses used to pull the station's heavy fire engine and hose carriages.
🐴 The pages function in part as a detailed livestock and working-horse record, documenting individual horses, their conditions, and periods when animals were sick or sidelined in the station stalls. 🐎📋
⚡ One particularly memorable horse named "Joker" is specifically mentioned in connection with telegraph system testing, offering an unusually personal glimpse into the interaction between the animals and the technology of the period. 🐴⚡
🚒 Every shift change and emergency run is accompanied by official handwritten validation, including the signature of Captain Jos. Stehling, further reinforcing the authenticity and administrative importance of the record. dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;">🏛️ A UNIQUE NEW ORLEANS HISTORICAL DOCUMENT 🏛️
✨ For collectors of New Orleans history, firefighting history, municipal history, transportation history, horse-drawn apparatus, manuscript material, or early 20th-century American ephemera, this is an exceptionally interesting survivor. 📜🔥
🚒 It captures a fascinating moment when firefighting was still deeply dependent upon horse-drawn engines, hose carriages, telegraph systems, telephone communication, and physically organized watch crews. 🐎⚡📞
📚 Unlike a later commemorative book or reproduction, this ledger is a working contemporary document, written by the people who actually operated the station. That makes the names, addresses, signatures, horse records, supply entries, and daily observations particularly compelling for historical research and collection. 🔎📜
🖤 CONDITION: The exterior shows significant historic wear, including deterioration and loss to portions of the black covering and wear around the spine and edges. The interior is comparatively clean, highly legible, and remarkably well preserved, with the handwritten entries remaining easy to read. 📖✨ Please examine all photographs carefully, as they are an important part of the description. 📸
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