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SOUTH CAROLINA WRITERS' PROJECT
Life Ristery
Title, William Donald Mitchell
Date of first writings
Name of person interviewed,
Fietitious name,
Street address,
Place:
Occupations
Name of writer,
Inew of reviser:
ea
Feb. 22, 1939.
William Donald Mitchell (Alto)
'Mitch.'
Central fire statism.
Spartanburg, S.C.
Firemen.
D. A. Russell.
Villas Donald Mitchell, 72 years old, is not only the *limit GILT fire
fighter, both in years end in service, but he also is the oldest city employee
in point of service now employed. For forty.tvn, years he has been a fireman,
and for twenty..eight of those ferty.two years, he served as chief of the
Spartanburg fire department. Re vas the first paid fireman employed by the
town, in 1897.
As he reviewed the passormaa of his years in the fire department, this
veteran fire fighter recalled that when he was elected to the department en
Sept. 20, 1897, during the administration of Mayer Al.& B. Calvert, at a
solar/ of $30.00 per nemth, there were only two pieces of apparatus.a hose
and chemical vagsa drawn by two horns, anda steam engine. Vases Greenewald
was chief of the department, receiving $100.00 yearly. Bob Wilder vas enpleyed
as a city fireman after Mitchell, and later Will &adore a negro, was employed.
'The first fire statist: was a ono -story frame building, 'with a dirt floor,
'which was heated mot of the present city hall,' said the veteran fireman.
There were two stalls for the horses. When there was a fire the bell in the
opera house was sounded, the number of rings signifying which ward the fire
was in. Only the hose wagon would respond, but if the fireless a large one,
and the AMUMR" we. needed, the horses were unhitched from the hose wagon,
brought back to the station, hitehed to the steam engine, and was started to
the scene of the fire. Strips of bacon wore used to start the fire in the
engine as it left the 'nation, and by the time it reached the blase, the
simper was red hot.
Mere were no paved streets then, nor any electric lights. Most of the
time, or rather, a great deal of the time, we had to go to fire in mud ankle
dewp. We got to a fire the best we could, and sometimes we arrived too late
to do much good ether than to keep a fire from spreading to other houses or
buildings. We had to depend on the volunteers to respond to every fire alarm.'
Mr. Mitchell, referred to as Nhief* and 'UMW by those an the depart-
ment, was born en Sept. 15, 1866, in Fairview township, Greenville County, the
sot of John Mitchell and Mattis Donald Mitchell. His father was a farmer, but
during the War Between the States, was superintendent of a yarn mill at Cedar
Falls.
Ho was married to Effie Johnson, of Statesville, North Carolina, in 1916,
and she died in 1916. He has three children, a daughter and two sons. Shortly
following the death of his wife, Mr. Mitchell sold his home an Walker Street,
and has been living at the central firs station sines,.
During his lifetime he has had but two weeks schooling, this being at the
Fairview school mhos he was ten years old. His mother died when hems eleven
years old, and shortly thereafter he went to live with his grandfather and work
an the farm, staying with his grandfather until his death. Mitchell was 17 years
old tl‘on.
hired out then to Lewis Thcapeon, in Greenville County, for $8.00 a
month and beard," said Mr. Mitchell. "I steyed with him for about four years
and then decided to farm for myself. I averaged around 200 bushels of corn
and sight bales of cotton during the year. I soon learned to buy and sell
horse.* and in 1894 decided to come to Spartanburg and started to work for
Finch Alexander*Whe was running a livery stable. I helped to run the
business, and bought and sold horses for him. My salary was $10.00 per
month and board. I also received a small commission an the selling of
horses or mules. I was with his for three years, or until I was eleoted
a fireman in 1897."
The veteran fire fighter has storied during the administration of six
mayors, thew being Arch Calvert, Jahn F. Floyd, Boyce Les, O. L. Janson,
Ben Hill Brown, and the present mayor, T. W. Woodworth.
On April 23, 1908, hews elected as assistant chief of the fire depart-
ment, and on Sept. 11. 1911, hews elected chief of the department, succeed-
ing Chief B.S. Kennedy, who resigned. On the same date D. H. Runtsinger VOWS
elected assistant thief of the department. He was succeeded as chief of the
department ih 1933 by L. T. Cothran, at present owning/caw of the fire
department an city council. Ris salary as thief of the department was $198.00
per month. His present salary is that of a private. being $130.00.
"We had about sixty volunteer firemen and four paid members ohm
joined the department," said Mr. Mitchell. 'There were three volunteer
companies, "The Champions,' 'The Reds," and "The ?Annie Blue," the last
named being a negro company. Chief Greenwald did not live at the depart-
ment, but *toyed at his home. Bob Wilder, myself and the negro, Will Solder,
stayed at the fire house day and night. We were an for twenty-four hours,
and mare giver a half a night off ono* a month. Today we have two stations
being used, and a third that was abandonad in 1931. There are sight pieces
of motorised apparatus, an up.towdate fire alarm system, and thirty.seven
men, who work on twelveAour shifts. liken station No. Ives dissontinuid„
that put eight men out of work."
Mr. Mitchell noodled that the largest fir, in the history of the
department oocurad in 1906 when fifty-nine houses wars destroyed in the
the
Spartan Mill omanunity. Inadequate meter supply, coupled with/fact that
it was a windy day, sada the conflagration all tha worse, sad all the
firemen and volunteers aould de watt to prevent it from spreading further.
The most significant data in tha history of the Spartanburg fire
department, in the opinion of Mr. Mitchell, was on Feb. 8, 1909, when
city cannon signed a oontraot for an electrical fir. alarm system to
be installed by the Oemewell Fire Alarm Company. Thirty.five firs alarm
boxes were installed at first, and gradually additional bozos have been
placed until now there are seventy-nine located throughout the city,
which includes boxes installed at Wefford and Converse oollegas.
It requires less than a minute for the apparatus to leave the fire
station after an alarm has sounded, according to Mr. Mitchell, And,
strange as it may seem, the firemen respond to an alarm quicker during the
night hours than in the daytine. This is explained by the fat that at
night, after the firemen have retired, and an alarm comes in, all they do
is jump into their boots, slide down the pole and jump to their places an
the apparatus and get started. This requires less than 30 seconds. In the
day, however, the firemen may be scattered about the station, eons doing
other duties, and vhen an alarm comas, it nay require a fww seconds mare
to get out, however, it has never required as long as a fall minute before
the trueks were leaving the station and on their way to the fire, aseerding
to Mr. httehell.
For the past six years Mt. Mitchell has boom the suit& board end
telephone operator at the oentral station, end does not engage in fighting
fires. It is his duty to see that the alarm, if sounded by the gong from
one of the boxes, tallies with the indicator and the tape, mad 'tan the
alarm is telephoned, to ascertain for sure the oorrect address from excited
persons litho, an many *maims, cannot give their own home address.
During the years that he has been a mother of the department, the fire-
men have been called upon to perform many urrusual requeets, said Mr. Mitchell.
*I think one of the most unusual calls we ever received over the phone
vas 'when we raised a ladder to got a drunken man off the roof of a house on
East MiLn Street about two yam ago,* said the former chief. la:mother*
was the time about throe years ago when a lady living in the Converse Heights
Wilton of tho city locked herself in the bathroom, had a neighbor to sell the
fire department, and we went out and put a ladder up to the bathroom. and she
same out the window.
*About fifteen years age we went out on Golden Street and pulled a
mull out of a well thirty foot deep. First, we got a negro to go down into
the well. tie a rope *round the front legs of the animal and make a loop
over his head to keep his head from under the water. We then pumped the well
full of water and this floated the mule to the top. The animal belonged to
Converse College.
'In 1930 we took the extension ladder to a legation en East Main Street
near Converse and got a woman tree -sitter from her wok in the top of a huge
tree. She had been in the tree two days and nights, end a steno come up
and she was afraid to climb back down the swaying tree.
"Several your* ago we also rescued a dog from a well an Watford Street,
and in 1917 pulled a frightened eat from a yell an Sway Street. One request,
however, that we did not fulfill, was the lady who called us a few months ago
to send the apparatus to her home on rydrick Street 'and smoke some rats out
of her bailment. put I suppose the mast unique request we ever had, through
all the veers I have been a fireman, vas about two nmnths ago when same lady
called over the 'big phone. and wanted to lama if we would start a fire in
her furnaee at six o'clock sharp the next noruingi.
Such is tho life end experiences of a veteran fire fighter. and one who
feels at home only mhen he is at the fire station.
"MV time is almost at an end, I feel, but I do not vent to have sny
lingering illness,' concluded Mr. Mitchell. "I hope to die in harness,just
like old Jake did, when he mad Joe were two of the best horses ewer hitched
to a fire wagon.*