Putting a date on Knoxville Fire Department's "first" ladder wagon

The following photograph, which is available online on the McClung Historical Digital Collection via their website, includes an image of what is commonly known as Knoxville's first ladder wagon along with what appears to be a group of unidentified men, presumably firemen. The image has been published and re-published in several local publications and has long been dated as ca. 1876. But is it possible to check the historical accuracy of that date and determine as well who are the unidentified firemen in this photograph?

Without the actual image to inspect for myself (and I never thought to ask for the original), I believe whoever originally catalogued this photograph did so as ca. 1876 because it is possible that it is either written on the back of the photograph (I used to work in the archives at UT and would have done the same) or rather printed as such when the image appeared in a 1922 copy of the Knoxville News-Sentinel. But we must always be careful when looking to newspapers for historical fact, especially when an article is written a generation or so removed from the event. It is also quite possible that the date 1876 comes from the fact that either the cataloguer or someone with the newspaper came across information from a published or unpublished source that led them to believe that Knoxville city government purchased its first ladder wagon for the fire department in 1876; however, I have not located a purchase for a ladder wagon for 1876 in the City Council Minutes located in the Knox County Archives. On the one hand, Knoxville's voluntary fire department did in fact purchase a hook and ladder for such a company of voluntary firefighters prior to 1876. On the other hand, the city fathers approved the purchase of new fire apparatus, including a hook and ladder wagon, for their rapidly, expanding "metropolis" in the late 1880s and early 1890s.

 

But I believe the photograph CAN be dated to a specific time that is not 1876, but rather sometime between August 9, 1894-Spring 1895. How so? Three points.

 

First, let's begin with the background. The image is clearly taken in what is present-day Market Square and the building immediately behind them is City Hall, which was home to the Fire Department's main headquarters from when it opened in March 1889 to late 1897 (an image of City Hall located at the northern end of the Market House in 1893 appeared in a previous post). Thus, we can already move the date of the image from 1876 to at least post-March 1889. 

 

Second, I have managed to identify through several sources each of the firemen in this photograph, and, more importantly for dating the image, their positions within the fire department. Using both newspapers and several images in the Captain Jack Lewis Collection held at the McClung Historical Collection, I have identified the firemen and their ranks, with each of these firemen's service in the department, due to 19th century politics prior to civil service reform, only overlapping together between 1894-1895 as follows:

 

L to R: Walter E. Waldrop (94 pipeman, 95 fireman); Col. William Cross (Chief); James Jones (94 fireman, 95 hook and ladder); Sterling G. Hickle (94-95 ladderman); John B. Hawkins (94-95 ladderman); Marshall C. Hall (94 driver; 95 fireman); Herman Schenck (94 Captain, hook and ladder & electrician, 95 electrician). William Cross did not become captain until August 9, 1894. Thus the image has to be at least post-August 9, 1894.

Finally, to get to the Spring 1895 date that I propose as the cut off point for the photograph's time frame, I have enlarged the image to focus on the businesses located at the north end of Market Square as seen in this image to read the business of Howard Karnes, which was located at 31-33 Market from 1895-1902. But, T.P. McDaniel, whose business sign can barely be seen at 27 Market, was no longer listed at that site in the city directory as early as the 1895 directory.

Thus, it is my conclusion that though the image was clearly taken between August 9, 1894-Spring 1895, it is likely this image was taken near the beginning of William Cross's tenure as Knoxville's fire chief.