Central Fire Station
203 W. Foster, Pampa, TXIn response to the rapid growth of the city of Pampa in the 1920s, city leaders decided to build an up-to-date fire station amidst other civic buildings as part of a grand building program for the newly prosperous boomtown. Architect William R. Kaufman incorporated Beaux-Arts styling and Georgian ornamentation with a functional plan common to fire stations throughout the region. Completed in 1930, the Central Fire Station served as the city's sole fire station until 1957 and continues serving as a fire station to this day, in addition to being an integral element in the "Million Dollar Row" of civic and commercial buildings constructed in the late 1920s and early 1930s in downtown Pampa.
Pampa lies in the northwest corner of Gray County, in the southern portion of the Great Plains. The county's prehistoric Plains Apaches gave way to the Apaches, who were in turn displaced by the Comanches and Kiowas. Spanish exploration of the area began after Francisco Vasquez de Coronado advanced into the Panhandle in 1541 in search of gold. Army engineers began mapping the area in 1845, followed by the arrival of buffalo hunters and traders. Native Americans were removed to Indian Territory after the Red River War of 1874. The federal government established Fort Elliott in 1875 in adjacent Wheeler County. Ranchers settled the area as early as 1877 and were soon followed by land syndicates that established vast ranches. In 1882, the Francklyn Land and Cattle Co. purchased approximately 637,440 acres in Gray, Carson, Hutchinson and Roberts Counties. In 1886, English bondholders foreclosed on the land, which became part of the newly organized White Deer Lands Co.
In 1888, the Southern Kansas Railroad extended its line through the Panhandle toward Amarillo, through present-day Pampa. White Deer Lands manager George Tyng applied for a post office in 1892, which operated under the names Glasgow, Sutton, and finally, Pampa, so named because Tyng saw a similarity to the flat terrain of the Argentine pampas (plains) he had once visited. In 1902, White Deer Lands began to sell its holdings, leading to a land rush in Gray County. To entice potential land buyers traveling by train, printed brochures and a display at the station house boasted of the abundant produce raised in the county. In 1916, White Deer Lands built its third and last Pampa office building, from which land sales were conducted until 1957.
Gray County was organized in 1902, and the first courthouse was constructed in Lefors, in the center of the county, and home to some of the first settlers. That same year, Pampa was laid out north of the railroad, encompassing 38 blocks, bordered on the north by Browning, east by Wynne, south by Atchison, and west by West. As a farming and ranching center, the population of Pampa remained under 1,000 until the discovery of oil in 1926 transformed Pampa into a boom town. Godfrey Cabot, head of Cabot Carbon in Boston, established a carbon black plant in 1927. The city improved downtown streets with brick, churches expanded, and many downtown business owners tore down their frame buildings and erected permanent buildings, including grand hotels, the Worley Hospital, city parks, and other improvements and amenities not common to most small communities in the Texas panhandle.
By the late 1920s, Pampa's growth had outstripped the city's service and facilities. A 1929 bond election resulted in $238,000 worth of improvements, primarily to construct a new city hall, fire station, streets and parks. Central Fire Station was built on the site of the first Pampa Fire Department building (1919), a small brick building that housed a single 1920 REO fire truck and supported a six-man volunteer crew. A Ford chemical truck was added to the fleet in 1925, followed by an American-LaFrance fire truck in March 1927. In the mid-1920s, as the city's population surged (from 910 residents in 1922 to approximately 10,000 by 1926), the original single-bay fire station was replaced with a two-bay garage. Within five years, a new fire station was necessary.
Amarillo architect William Raymond Kaufman designed the Central Fire Station, the Gray County Courthouse (1929, NR 1998), and Pampa City Hall (1930), all erected in a row just north of the grand Schneider Hotel on Albert Square. Kaufman also designed the Art Deco-style Combs-Worley Building (1931), located directly to the east of the courthouse. The area soon became known as "Million Dollar Row." The development of this area, with three compatible civic buildings by the same architect, reveals a sophisticated level of planning. The civic buildings, despite having different functions, share similar glazed terra cotta ornamentation and are finished with buff brick. The Central Fire Station shares many characteristics with the adjacent courthouse and city hall, most notably similar materials and ornamentation. The elegant fire station, however, is the smallest, simplest, and least expensive of the three, as the city and architect opted for functionality over flamboyance. Still, the use of terra cotta detailing reveals a desire to match the gracefulness of the surrounding buildings. The Panhandle Construction Co. of Pampa completed the building in July 1930.
Kaufman (1881-1948) was the son of Amarillo architect Davis Paul Kaufman (1852-1915). Working together in the firm of D.P. Kaufman & Son, they designed many buildings in the Texas Panhandle and nearby New Mexico, including the Elks Club, Old Grand Theater, St. Mary's Academy (1913-14), and Lowrey's Academy, all in Amarillo, the Union County Courthouse (1909) in Clayton, NM, and the Cochran County Courthouse (1926, remodeled 1968) in Morton, TX. Kaufman also designed Elizabeth Nixon Jr. High School, in Amarillo, and the Sam Houston Elementary School (1930) in Pampa. In 1939, Kaufman moved to San Antonio to work in the Army Engineer's office at Fort Sam Houston. After his death in San Antonio in 1948, Kaufman's son, W.R. Kaufman, Jr., an architect trained at Texas Tech, took over the family firm.
The Pampa Fire Department remained a volunteer organization until 1948. Two substations were built in 1957, substation #1 at 317 E. 17th, and substation # 2 at 1010 S. Barnes. Substation #2 was discontinued in 1993 and is used for storage. The Central Station houses three trucks, including one that can assist in the rescue of car wreck victims, a truck with a booster for grass fires, and a ladder truck.
In excellent condition overall, Pampa's Central Fire Station meets Criterion A, in the areas of Community Planning and Development, as representative of the many city services which had to grow in order to serve a rapidly expanding community, and as part of an organized civic building program spurred by the influx of oil and industry money, and the community leaders' desire to create a well-planned civic center. The completion of the fire station signaled the culmination of Pampa's civic center, and together with the courthouse and city hall, served as a tribute to Pampa's meteoric rise from a railroad stop to the commercial and industrial hub of the Eastern Panhandle. The building meets Criterion C in the area of Architecture, as an excellent example of Beaux Arts civic architecture in the region by William Raymond Kaufman.
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1999.
The National Register of Historic Places is the official list of the Nation’s historic places worthy of preservation. Authorized by the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect America’s historic and archeological resources.