7600 West Jefferson Avenue
Detroit Fire Department Engine #29, Delray Fire, Delray EMS
After years of back and forth between the City of Detroit, Delray Village officials, business owners, and residents, Delray was officially annexed into the City of Detroit in the Spring of 1906. Although Delray already had numerous government agencies, joining the soon-to-be Motor City meant Delray would benefit from expanding city services.
In 1907, Delray got its first Detroit Fire Department station. Engine Company #29 was designed by Richard E. Raseman and, when it opened, was across the street from the Solvay Process Company, one of the first large employees in Delray. This structure was home to horse-drawn fire carriages and steam-powered engines in the early years.
By 1922, Delray Fire had gotten rid of their last horse-drawn vehicles. Within a few weeks of Engine #29’s transition, the entire Detroit Fire Department utilized motorized engines.
That same year, Louis Digue, a pipeman, was severely burned while fighting a fire at the Barrett Company Plant on Zug Island Road. He later died at Delray Industrial Hospital from his injuries. He had only worked as a fireman since August 1920 and was always stationed at Engine #29.
In 1924, the Detroit Fire Department had a basketball team. After suffering a defeat against D.U.L., the team was set to take on the Springwells Teachers’ Quartet and were looking for more games against local teams. V. J. Thomas, of Engine #29, was one of the team’s organizers.
In this era, Delray was one of Detroit’s most prosperous neighborhoods. Jobs were plentiful, neighbors looked out for one another, and sports were engrained in the culture. By 1929, soccer had become a prominent sport in parts of the city, and many games were played at Solvay Park, across the street from Detroit Fire Department Engine #29. The Detroit American League drew big crowds and had multiple divisions based on the teams’ performance. Games were still played here as late as the early 1940s at the hands of the Michigan Amateur League. It’s not hard to think that Engine #29 crewmembers could have watched the matches from the station’s second floor.
As time passed, many longtime Delray residents started to move to the suburbs, similar to many neighborhoods in Detroit. Whether it was the advent of the highway, a promise of cheaper taxes and more land, or white flight in response to rising non-white populations, Delray started changing. However, one constant in the neighborhood was Engine #29.
In 1965, while out on a call to two vacant homes on Posen Street, Captain Lyle Ingram, 50, had a heart attack and later died. He had been in the department for nearly 30 years and ran Engine #29 at the time of his death. He was the former secretary of the Detroit Firefighters Association Local 344.
By this point, Delray was heavily industrialized. In the 1960s, Louis M. Sarko, the Thermal Conversion Co. president, tried to build an $18 million waste disposal plant at West Jefferson and Solvay. The City Council voted not to let the plan go through. Sarko, later the president of Arrow Wrecking in Dearborn, was arrested for tax fraud.
In 1970, Engine #29 went out on a call and returned to find that their color TV had been stolen. It was bolted to the table to prevent theft; however, the thieves had taken the time to unbolt the TV the firefighters had paid for out of their own pockets.
The article in the Detroit Free Press highlighted that cutbacks had ensured that no men could stay back at the station when the bell rang and that the department had outlawed fire dogs years before. Some firefighters reported receiving faux fire calls only to return to their ransacked firehouse. Looking back from 2023, this showcases how underfunded the Detroit Fire Department was in the 1970s and how desperate times in Detroit were getting by that point. Roman Gribbs was mayor at the time.
By 1976, cutbacks took things a step further, prompting the closure of the EMS unit inside Engine #29 to shutter for two weeks. I’m unsure if the closure eventually happened or if it occurred more than once. This isn’t all that different than what’s happened in recent years. After signing a new contract, Detroit added just under a dozen ambulances a few months ago.
In 1988, Coleman Younge announced his new budget proposal, including removing rigs from three fire stations. The plan would leave EMS units at those buildings but consolidate fire efforts at higher volume companies. The three units scheduled to lose rigs under the proposal were Engine #32 (11740 E. Jefferson), Ladder #9 (2775 W. Warren), and Engine #29, pictured here. Larned and Washington, the downtown headquarters, would lose a rig, too, but would still have others.
Members of the Detroit Firefighters Association told the City Council that reducing operations would have dire consequences in the form of response time.
Ultimately, the approved budget saw the East Jefferson and West Warren units lose their rigs. Downtown and Delray both kept theirs. After the changes, the budget figure was unchanged, at $1.8 billion, or over $4.5 billion in 2023. The city budget this year is $2.6 billion. Per resident, that’s similar to what we spend today.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Detroit was on fire. Devil’s Night ravaged the Detroit Fire Department every year, and Delray was hit hard by arson year round. Engine #29 remained a constant in Delray for decades of turmoil, population loss, and lack of city investment.
However, in 2022, Engine #29 was closed unceremoniously. There was no glorious send-off for the structure that had served the City of Detroit for over a century. The firefighters and equipment were sent to Engine #37 at Central and Dix.
The Detroit Fire Department still owns the structure, which is currently used to store Detroit Parking Enforcement meters. The few residents left in the surrounding neighborhood and workers at Lockeman’s Hardware next door maintain and look after the structure.
If the city doesn’t properly look after this structure, soon, there’ll be another historic casualty in Delray.
