Let’s look back at state hospital fire protection in our state and specifically Cherry Hospital outside Goldsboro. We’ve long documented the fire department and apparatus at Broughton Hospital in Morganton, but did you know that Cherry Hospital also had a fire department?

First, some background. The facility first opened in 1880 and served black patients for most of facility’s history. By 1924, the hospital– then-named the State Hospital for the Colored Insane– had its own fire department. Nine employees operated three hose reels with 600 feet of 2 1/2-hose and 800 feet of 2-inch hose by 1901, noted Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps at the time.

Fast-forward a few decades and the hospital fire department was upgraded with its first fire truck, as noted in a new old article on the subject, from the News-Argus on October 6, 1949.

Reported W. J. Sadler, there had never been any “fires of consequence” during the 75+ years that the hospital had operated. And now, the threat of fire was further reduced with delivery of a Ford/Ward LaFrance pumper just a few days ago. That plus that many modern fireproof buildings on campus. The truck cost $7,500, carried 300 gallons of water, and could pump 500 to 650 gallons per minute with a pressure of 150 PSI.

It replaced the “ancient reel-hose cart” that was the hospital’s only fire equipment. And the truck could pump (draft) water from any “ditch, pond, or other stream” and any other “outlying areas of the hospital” where there were no hydrants.

The fire truck carried 1,000 feet of 2 1/2 hose and the hospital fire department had 2,000 feet in reserve. The also had “several miles” of water mains and 15 hydrants, with more of both to be installed later, said Fire Chief Hubert Clark.

It was also equipped with a combination “stream-and-fog” nozzle, a new piece of technology for creating a “fog” that could virtually “smother” fires that were “not of the most intense variety.”

The department was comprised of “technical specialists at the hospital” and the volunteer members held drills “at regular intervals.” The city fire department was also always willing to respond and assist, “should the need arise.”

The new pumper had been “thoroughly tested and approved by the National Board of Fire Underwriters” and received a Class A rating, the highest possible.

Here’s a photo tour of the facility in 2010, and where at least two firefighting artifacts survived, an old hose reel and the bright-red fire siren.