This file portion of www.watertownhistory.org website
Chapter on
Watertown Police Department
Chapter
on Watertown Fire Department
Watertown Special Police
Watertown Fire Dept Civil Police
1869
1869 Special Police
1. The common council, for the purpose
of guarding against the calamities of fire, shall have power to prescribe the
limits within which wooden building or buildings of other materials that shall
not be considered fire proof, shall not be erected or repaired and to direct
that all and any buildings within . . .
7. The common council shall have power
to organize a sack [fire] company, which shall be known as sack company number
one, to consist of not more than twenty members. Such company shall constitute
a part of the fire department, and at fires shall be subject to the control of
the chief engineer. The members of said
company, either collectively or individually, are hereby authorized and
empowered to act as a special police in and for the city of Watertown, and
are hereby vested with all the power and authority which now is or may
hereafter be vested in any police officer of said city and shall be entitled to
all the rights and immunities of the fire department; at fires they shall
take charge of all property which may be exposed or endangered, and shall, so
far as it may be in their power, preserve the same from injury and destruction
. . . Riedl, Ken, Watertown
Fire Department: 1858-2007, 2007, pg 48
1876 Watertown Special Police [Fire
Police]
A general
desire seems to prevail among many of our citizens, and the matter will soon be
submitted to the consideration of the Board of Street Commissioners as to the
exigency of organizing a Sack Company, to act as a reinforcement to our
present police force in cases of great necessity.
Although
the city charter expressly provides for an organization of this description
[see 1869], still no force of this kind has yet been formed, and without
it the efficiency of our Fire Department seems necessarily incomplete. The organization, as provided by the charter,
is to comprise not more than twenty men, to constitute a part of the Fire
Department and to be subjected to the full control of the chief engineer.
It is
understood that each member belonging to the company is virtually
constituted a police officer, empowered with the same rights, privileges
and authority that are vested in any emissary connected with our city
police. Watertown Democrat, 06 22 1876 / Riedl, Ken, Watertown Fire Department: 1858-2007, 2007, pg 84
_____________________________________________________
Sack
Company No. 1 was incorporated in 1876 for the purpose of attending fires in
the capacity of a special fire police
force — few now know that they even existed, much less what their role was
at the time. Special Police or Fire
Police were Volunteer Fire Company members with sworn police powers. They received special police training and
were responsible for traffic control, crowd control, fire
and incident scene security, apparatus security securing property and, in some
instances, station security during calls for service. They hustled when the
alarm of fire was heard, many times reaching the scene before the firemen
themselves. During times of large-scale
or particularly serious small emergencies, the response system could become
overwhelmed. To that end, having a
trained, equipped group of responders who could supplement fire personnel was
an invaluable tool to incident commanders.
Riedl, Ken, Watertown Fire Department: 1858-2007, 2007, pgs 84-86
A group of the Watertown Special Police, all Civil War veterans, posed for pictures that were printed as part of a composite gallery; the following individual portraits are derived from that single panel picture. The picture credits a photographer named Fagan as having posed the men shown in the panel.
C. Behnke, William Bittner, Joseph Bliefernicht
Ernest Buending, Ferdinand Buending, W. Dobbratz
Leonard Jaehrling, H. Justmann, L. Kabet
Alfred Kehr, H. Nowak, Charles Piper
Ernest Riemann, F. Rosenbaum, William Schulte
C. F. Wendtland, Charles Zautner Riedl, Ken, Watertown
Fire Department: 1858-2007, 2007, pgs 84-86
Watertown
Historical Society Collection
History of Watertown, Wisconsin