Salt Lake City (Utah). Fire Department

Photographs, ca. 1885-1975.

View history of records' creator.

Schedule Description

Photographs, including some negatives and cabinet cards loose or in albums, depicting individual firemen, fire stations and equipment, and activities of the department.

Scope and Content

This series contains photographs from the Salt Lake City Fire Department that document the history of the agency. Between 1852 and 1883 fire protection service in Salt Lake City was conducted on a voluntary basis. In 1883 the Salt Lake City Council established a full-time, paid fire department, after a particularly damaging fire occurred in downtown Salt Lake City on June 21, 1883. The photographs in this series document the history of the Salt Lake City Fire Department as a unit of local government.

The first box in this series contains turn of the century portrait photographs of fire fighters that were taken by Salt Lake's Shipler Commercial Photography studio. The box also contains more contemporary 20 the century photographs of fire fighters, events, and fire stations in Salt Lake City. Photographs of this type continue in box two.

Box three contains a portrait photograph book that was given to the Salt Lake City Fire Department by photographer C.R. Savage in January 1888. The portrait photographs in this book feature Salt Lake City fire fighters and are of varying sizes and formats.

The fourth box in this series contains a series of 4" x 5" black and white photo prints that document the construction of Salt Lake City Fire Station No. 1. This building was located at approximately 100 South and State Street and served as the headquarters for the Salt Lake City Fire Department.

Notes

Many of the photographs in this series are fragile, and extreme care should be taken in handling originals. High resolution scans have been made of the oldest photographs in this series, and it is recommended that these be used in lieu of handling original photographic images.

This series was processed by Jim Kichas between December 2014 and January 2015.

Reference staff and researchers should note that the photographs found in the C.R. Savage photograph book, in box 3, have been removed and placed in box 6. This was done to enhance preservation of these historic, at-risk photographs. The scrapbook was saved due to the intrinsic value of the item. The photographs in box 6 have been labeled with the corresponding page number that the photograph was found on. This ensures that original order has been maintained, and that the original arrangement of the photograph book could be easily reconstructed if the need ever arises.

Box 3 Page 12 "Portrait of Unidentified Man" identified as Nathan Sears by Erin Burns in December 2023. Confirmed with FamilySearch ID KWVP-PXF.