Portland Fire Bureau 1976 [Oregon] Yearbook & History ~ Fire Department, Firefighters

Title: Portland Fire Bureau 1976 [title on spine: Portland Fire Bureau 1883-1976]
Author: [Les Pratt, Editor / Floyd Smith, History]
Publication: [Portland, Oregon: Portland Fire Bureau / Printed by the Walsworth Publishing Company of Marceline, Mo.] [1976]

Description: Red boards with silver fire bureau badge on front cover. Original owner's name stamped at foot of front cover (a notable figure in P.F.B. history) and is also handwritten on a the blank verso of the front free endpaper, else interior is clean. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white photographs and portraits. 140 pages. 11 x 8.5.

Includes a brief history (about a dozen pages) and numerous historic photos throughout. Largely a yearbook of personnel in 1976, with identified portraits for the staff at each of the stations and fireboats, along with Battalion Chiefs, newly appointed Fire Fighters, Fire Inspectors and Investigators, members of the Fire Alarm Telegraph Division, and others, plus three pages of retired personnel. Includes maps of each of the Fire Districts.

This copy belonged to Alexander ''Alex'' Lang Holden (1890-1983), a retired Portland fire battalion chief, whose portrait appears on page 105. He is credited by the editor as having contributed ''a great amount of material that has been used in the book.'' He joined the PFB as a substitute in 1910 and joined full-time in 1913. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1917 and to captain in 1928. He retired from the PFB in September 1941. During WWII, he served as the fire chief at the Portland Army Air Base. He was also a musician and had a marching band called Captain Holden and His Smoke Eaters. He was the son of Lee G. Holden (1865-1943), who served as the Portland Fire Chief from 1923-1928, and was remembered for his fire-fighting innovations and for designing 24 stations. [Alexander Holden's middle initial erroneously appears as a 'C' on the front cover.]

Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Near Fine

Keywords: Portland, Oregon, Multnomah County, firefighters, fire department, first responders, Alex Holden, Alexander Holden,