WESTWOOD—On a wintry day long ago, Westwood’s bravest posed proudly. Westwood was the first community in the Pascack Valley to formally organize a firefighting company. Continental Hook and Ladder Co. formed on Feb. 17, 1894. The first truck house, little more than a single bay and a tower, was built on a Center Avenue lot donated by local general store owner George Brickell.
The men held a fundraiser to raise $350 and purchase the borough’s first fire apparatus, a hook and ladder wagon outfitted with ladders, axes, buckets, hooks, crossbars, and rope, all of which the men had to pull by hand to a fire scene.
Around the same time, Westwood gained its first fire hydrant, which was installed at the corner of Broadway and Westwood Avenue. It would be many years before the entire borough would be hooked into the system.
A second bay was added to the firehouse for Continental Hose Company in 1910. Above, the building is shown as it looked in the early 1910s. The bell from its tower is displayed in Firemen’s Memorial Park at Five Corners.
In the photo, Westwood firefighters pose on a wintry day with their horse-drawn fire apparatus. The two black horses, named Prince and Belle, were purchased in 1911. Horse-drawn fire wagons would later be replaced by motorized vehicles in 1918.
In 1928, the firehouse building was torn down to make way for a municipal complex. Over the years that Center Avenue borough hall would house the police, fire department, ambulance corps, borough government, and municipal court.
That building stood until 1997 when it, too, was demolished and a new municipal complex was constructed on Washington Avenue. History repeated itself as the Center Avenue site was again designated as the home of the fire department, and a new firehouse was built there in the early 2000s. The Westwood Volunteer Fire Department moved into its present headquarters in 2005.