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BEnicia FirefightERs
First & WEst J Street


California’s oldest continuous firefighting volunteer service started in Benicia in 1847 as the Benicia Volunteer Fire Brigade. In 1856, it became the Benicia Volunteer Fire Department. The original Fire House was an annex to City Hall, next door to the Capitol, but it has since been torn down. The Museum of History, Benicia has the state’s oldest firefighting engine, the Phoenix, on display. The Phoenix was built in the 1820s and served Benicia for 74 years, 1847-1921. In 1856, each fireman contributed $6.00 to ship a second fire engine around the Horn, a red Hunneman No. 1 engine. The first fire truck arrived in 1915.

This mural is problematic because it may have been installed incorrectly. It is likely that the three tiles aligned vertically on the left, should have been installed on the right hand side of this mural. There are several clues to this possible error: the fireman, depicted third from the left, is incomplete as if he should be partially out of the frame; the building is identified as the BFD and the tiles depicting the building also display margins that indicate the connecting design. If the lefthand tiles are moved to the right side, these slim margins line up perfectly with the relocated adjacent tiles on the right and left sides. The new arrangement would also center the fire house in this mural.

The artist was also not consistent with the placement of the wording on the tiles. Instead of centering the mural on the fire house, the installer may have assumed the title was centered (which is the case with the majority of murals in this collection). However, in this mural the artist appears to have justified the title to the left (as he did with some of the other tiles in this collection).

This mural depicts nine men hauling the pumper while smoke billows from a house on a hillside behind the fire house.


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