City of Folkston took pride in its Volunteer Fire Department in the 1950s.

Photo shows City of Folkston Police Station and Fire Station as it looked in the early 1950s. The Department got no budget from the city, but raised its own money with suppers, donations, and dances. Then-Folkston Mayor Scott Johnson began bringing the Fire Department into the 20^th Century.  The Police Department building was later torn down and a combination City-Hall Fire Department was built in the 1960s. Note the old City Jail standing underneath the water tower. Few city prisoners needed to be locked up in that small cubicle with no water or sanitary facilities.

By Jack Mays

            Until about 1950, The City of Folkston's Fire Department consisted of three large reels of fire hose on rolling carts stored in three small metal buildings in the town. When the town's fire alarm would sound (a siren atop a power pole on Main Street) volunteers would run to these little buildings, pull out the big-wheeled cart full of hose, and wait for someone with an automobile to pull up, open the car trunk and allow a fireman to climb inside and pull the hose reel to the scene of the fire. Only a few fire hydrants existed inside the town, and more often than not, the fire did not occur within reach of a fire hydrant. In that case, the firemen stood helplessly by while the structure burned to the ground. There was no water tanker truck available.

            In the 1950s, Folkston Mayor B. Scott Johnson fought for an improved fire department. Johnson had the city build concrete block stalls for fire trucks, and talked the Folkston City Council into spending $12,000 dollars to buy a new Mack Pumper Fire Truck. Tanker trucks were found in Government Surplus Warehouses, and put into use fighting fires outside the reach of fire hydrants.

            Mayor Johnson also had no City Hall. The mayor and council met in the offices of the Charlton County Commission in the county courthouse. Johnson eyed the little outhouse-looking police station at the corner of Main Street and U. S. 1 and ordered it moved onto First Street beneath the city's water tower. That little police cubicle had served as the town's Police Headquarters for years. A red light was mounted atop a utility pole near the little Police Station. When someone telephoned the Police Department, the red light began blinking, and the town's lone Policeman would rush to the station to answer the call. Then, the Policeman owned his own car. There was no city-owned police car.

            Mayor Scott Johnson was embarrassed by the Rube Goldberg operations of the city Police and Fire Department. He set about to bring the services into the 20^th Century, often in the face of criticism from city residents. The town's first traffic signal was hanging at the intersection of the Kingsland Highway and Third Street. It was built my Folkston Mayor Charlie Passieu, using a discarded 5 gallon oil can, cutting out holes for a single yellow light, and used a Christmas Tree Blinker to make the signal turn off and on.

            These crude city services tore at the progressive heartstrings of Mayor Johnson. The amiable mayor began a massive reform program to remove the embarrassing city operations. A single employee, Lee Lloyd, tended the city's water system. At that time there was no sanitary sewer system. Cesspools were everywhere, and during rainy seasons, the stench downtown became almost unbearable.

            Johnson personally oversaw the construction of the new fire stalls, and commissioned Volunteer Fireman Lewis Wade to take bids on a new Mack Pumper. Wade found it in Jacksonville and personally drove the shiny new fire truck back to Folkston.

            Firemen began a celebration when the new truck arrived. They spruced up the new fire station, lined up their new vehicles and immediately began plans for a "Fireman's Ball" to raise money to buy fire hose. Johnson celebrated right along with the firemen, setting up a fish fry for the volunteers on the night of the truck's arrival.

            At that time when someone reported a fire, firemen rushed to the new fire station, and the first to arrive drove the fire truck to the scene of the fire. A blackboard was erected in the firehouse where the fireman wrote in chalk the location of the fire was located, so that following firemen would know where to go to help put out the fire. The system actually worked quite well. The volunteers were made up by Ray Gibson, a worker in a nearby clothing store, barber Donald Prescott, located next door, E. B. Stapleton, Jr., in the family drug store on Main Street, Post Office employee Dick Mays, his brother, Jack, and Police Chief Harold Barfield. Others were James Altman, Bennie Smith, Lewis Wade and others.

            That Fire Department became the pride of the town. The members, without budgeted funds, raised money to buy the latest fire fighting equipment and to maintain their trucks. Merchants in the town dug heavily in their pockets when the firemen solicited funds.

            Scott Johnson's chest swelled with pride as he watched the fire department win favor with the townspeople. Then Johnson began renovating the tiny City Hall building that formerly was a Police Station. Folkston moved its City Clerk, Hiram Altman, from the courthouse into the new City Hall, and the little town was off and running. Altman prepared the City's first budget and personally pushed the town into modernization.

            However, Scott Johnson's City Fire Department proved the catalyst of massive changes in the way the city government operated. The town bought its own Police Car and discontinued using the Policeman's personal car. Other, more modern traffic signals were installed, and the city's water and sanitation crew was expanded. The people of the town began to like all the changes.

            Several years later Folkston built a new City Hall building, used as a combination-meeting place for Fire Meetings and City Hall Operations. That building was used until the present structure was built under the administration of Mayor Ray James.

            Today the 1950s model Mack Pumper is still owned by the City of Folkston, although not used as a County Fire Department has taken over the responsibilities formerly filled by a municipal fire department.

            There should be a bronze plaque somewhere near the Folkston City hall, attesting to the progressive efforts of the late B. Scott Johnson, who awakened the people of the town to a better way of life.