Engine Company 10
216 South Los Angeles Street
Engine Company No. 10---South Hill street near Sixteenth street
Circa 1900
Source: Los Angeles Fire
Department Photo Album Collection
On December 30, 1906, the day following the first Relief Association
meeting, Fireman Adolph Hermanson of Engine Company 10 was fatally
injured while fighting a fire. He fell from a top floor window to
the rear alley of the five-story brick building at 216-222 South Los
Angeles Street, in the wholesale district. The fire, discovered
around 9:15 p.m., by a night watchman, originated in the third floor
occupancy of Cohn, Goldsmith & Company, dealers in woolen
goods. A three-alarm assignment of apparatus, including the Water
Tower 1, (the Gorter), was unable to prevent flames from spreading up to the roof.
Assistant Chief O'Donnell said Hermanson was dragging
a hose toward the rear of the fifth floor. Stepping backward, he
tripped and fell through a window. Other accounts say Hermanson
was knocked out of the window when struck by a hose stream.
Hermanson's bride of only a few weeks received the Relief Association's
first death benefit payment.
Source: "A
Century of Service" by Paul Ditzel
|