Paris Fire Department
Paris, Lamar County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Fire protection in Paris dates to the early 1870s, when a group of businessmen led by Willet Babcock organized a volunteer fire company. Known as Phoenix Fire Company No. 1, the volunteer unit continued in operation until the city created a paid fire department in 1908. Operating from facilities at this site since 1884, the fire department has exhibited exemplary service in a number of disastrous fires, most notably the great fire of March 2,1 1916, which killed three people, destroyed 1,400 buildings, and caused millions of dollars' worth of property damage.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Fire protection in Paris began in the early 1870s when businessmen led by Willet Babcock organized the volunteer Phoenix Fire Company No. 1. The city established a paid department in 1908, operating from this site since 1884. The department met its greatest test in the catastrophic fire of March 1916, which killed three people and destroyed some 1,400 buildings.
Why it matters
The department's history traces the rise of professional public safety in a growing Texas town, tested by one of the most destructive urban fires in the state's history.
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Related people
- · Willet Babcock
Related events
- · Great Paris Fire of 1916
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Paris Fire, 1916
Paris, TX
On the windy afternoon of March 21, 1916, a fire broke out near a warehouse at the southwest edge of Paris, Texas, and 50-mph winds drove it in a funnel-shaped path across town. Before it was checked at dawn the next day, the blaze had destroyed nearly half of Paris — the courthouse, city hall, federal building, churches, and most of the business district — with damage estimated at $11 million. Firefighters came from as far as Oklahoma, and the glow was visible forty miles away.
John James Culbertson
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John James Culbertson grew up in the big cities of the Northeast before a salesman's eye spotted profit in Southern cottonseed oil. Moving to Paris in the 1880s, he built the town's first cotton mill and eventually a small cottonseed-oil empire, gaining a national reputation that led to seats on the new Dallas Federal Reserve board in 1914 and a wartime federal cotton bureau under President Wilson. After fire ravaged Paris in 1916, he and his wife Emily helped rebuild, giving the city libraries, monuments, and a marble fountain.
First National Bank of Paris
Paris, TX
William J. McDonald, a Civil War veteran and lawyer, opened this bank at its present location in 1886, one of several banks he built across northeast Texas through shrewd, patient management—careful in lending yet slow to foreclose. The present building went up in 1916 only to be gutted within months by a citywide fire, then rebuilt within the year, and during the Great Depression the bank's loans kept many local merchants and farmers afloat. McDonald left the bulk of his estate to the University of Texas, funding the McDonald Observatory dedicated in West Texas in 1939.
Lamar County Courthouse
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The great fire of March 1916 gutted Lamar County's massive 1897 Romanesque courthouse, once believed indestructible. Within weeks the commissioners hired local builders alongside the Fort Worth firm of Sanguinet & Staats, and by late 1917 a new fireproof concrete courthouse rose on the old foundation, sheathed in rough pink granite salvaged from the ruins. Its Classical design — corner pavilions, engaged columns, terra-cotta eagles, and triple-arched entries — anchored a downtown rebuilt in modern form.