On Saturday, October 3, the Romeo Community Archives will host a Scanning Party at the Romeo District Library Kezar Branch. It starts at 11am and ends at 1:30pm. For those who don't know, these events involve people receiving high-quality scans of their photographs to ensure long-term preservation. In our case, patrons even had a chance to donate their digital copies to the archives if they wanted to. One person Brandon Kasper did just that by giving copies of the Bruce Township Fire Department pictures to our digital collection.
Brandon works for the fire department, and awhile back, he donated digital copies of photos taken of the location in 1975. One of them was the picture seen above. It shows fire department officer Donald W. Ross and a dalmatian dog in the meeting room.
We know the photos were taken that year because on the back, the date April 9, 1975 was stamped onto each one. Why is this important? It turns out that the Bruce Township Fire Department officially opened on April 1 with their first call being received at 3:45pm that day. The Romeo Observer celebrated this momentous occasion on the front page of their April 3rd issue. In it, it discusses the fire department's first day, a revamped fire truck, and all of its members. It can be seen below.
In addition, the archives has the original physical picture of the members of the Bruce Township Fire Department in 1975.
The article identifies every fire department member, especially the man in the photo at the very top. In fact, he wasn't named in the original picture. We figured out that it was Donald W. Ross because he was named in the article. He's the man standing on the very left in the middle row in the second photo.
Additionally, since the fire department and the Bruce Township Hall were in the same building, they held an open house before and after the township had its first annual meeting in the new edifice on Saturday, April 5, 1975.
Bruce Township having its own fire department was a big deal. In the past, the township had been serviced by the Romeo and Almont fire departments. In 1974, Bruce Township decided to create its own after being notified "by Romeo that service would be terminated by next April upon expiration of the existing contract."
In August, the township started posting an advertisement recruiting firefighters for their fire department.
And the rest is history. The Bruce Township Fire Department has continued to serve its people since 1975.
People can view this picture and others on our online catalog at https://rcarchives.pastperfectonline.com/
See you at the Scanning Party!
To learn more about the Bruce Township Fire Department as well as the Scanning Party, you can contact the Romeo Community Archives at rca@romemodistrictlibrary.org or call (586) 690-4890. If you want to search for articles on that topic, you can find the Romeo newspapers like The Romeo Observer on the Suburban Library Cooperative's Local History Digital Collection website.
Images and sources courtesy of the Romeo Community Archives; Romeo Community Archives, Digital Collection; Brandon Kasper; and Melvin E. and Joan D. Bleich Collection, The Romeo Observer, August 8, 1974, Observer Countryan Section p.2, August 15, 1975, p.1-A, April 3, 1975, p.1-A, and April 10, 1975, p.1-A