Laurel Street Fire Station, Baton Rouge Louisiana

Date added: March 24, 2025

Categories:
Louisiana
Fire Stations

Do you have an update on the current status of this structure? Please tell us about it in the comments below.

The oldest fire company in Baton Rouge was established in 1825. Eventually, six volunteer companies were established, and there was great rivalry between them. Membership in any of the companies was considered prestigious and "Unless you or one of your family was a fire fighter, you just weren't in it." Annually, on George Washington's birthday, there was a fireman's parade complete with floats and a Grand Ball.

In 1914, the fire companies were transferred to the public domain. By 1918, there were four paid employees. With the passage of a bond issue for $175,000 in 1922, the streets were paved and four new fire stations were built. By 1925, the number of Fire Department employees had grown to 40.

The 4 fire stations constructed in the 1920s represent the transformation of the Baton Rouge fire department from a volunteer-based system rooted in 19th-century practices to a modern public service that paralleled the progress and growth of the city itself. One notable difference between Baton Rouge and other cities is that the former did not gain a municipal fire department until 1914, decades later than the norm.

Before the 1920s, Baton Rouge was served by 6 fire stations founded by its volunteer companies and scattered throughout the city (per 1916 Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps). These stations ranged from small 1-story buildings not much larger than sheds to 2-story storefront-style stations, e.g., Washington Co. No. 1 Fire Department at 420 N. 4^th Street. The Washington Co. No. 1 station is the only extant station from this period. After the 1920s stations were constructed, it was converted into a gym, presumably for the firemen at the new nearby Central Fire Station completed in 1925.

With its new municipal fire department and increasing size, Baton Rouge required new fire stations. In 1922, the City passed a bond issue for $175,000 to fund street paving (which made it possible for fire engines to travel farther faster) and the construction of 4 new fire stations to serve all of Baton Rouge: 1) Central Fire Station (now known as Bogan Fire Station) at 427 Laurel Street; 2) Sub-station No. 1 at 1801 Laurel Street (this structure); 3) Sub-station No. 2 at 542 S. 15^th Street; and 4) Sub-station No. 3 at 855 St. Ferdinand Street. All 4 stations were designed by the office of New Orleans architect William T. Nolan. (Lewis Grosz, who allegedly worked for Nolan at the time and claimed to have designed the stations, soon after relocated to Baton Rouge, where he established his own successful architectural practice and contributed several important designs during the city's interwar period.) The 3 sub-stations were designed as variations on the modern "bungalow" station and outfitted with the latest equipment and conveniences in line with new stations throughout the country. Their picturesque architectural styles (Mediterranean Revival and Mission Revival), small scale, setbacks, landscaped yards, front porches, garage-like engine rooms, and window boxes ensured that they would be welcome additions to their residential neighborhoods.

Upon completion, the local press heralded the new fire stations as symbols of modern efficiency and the envy of fire departments everywhere:

Substantiation to Baton Rouge's claim of being a real and modern city are its fire stations … Because of the well-known efficiency of the fire department and because of the recently improved streets, the Louisiana Fire Prevention and Rating bureau is making a survey here which will probably result in the reduction of fire insurance and a saving of insurance payers of the city …

That Baton Rouge has fire stations superior to any in the New England states was the unanimous opinion of the 60 fire chiefs from that section who spent a day here recently on their return trip from the meeting in New Orleans of the National Association of Fire Chiefs … Chief George L. Johnson of the fire department in Waltham, Mass., has asked for plans and photographs of one of the substations to take back with him with the intention of using it for a model for the building of substations there …

The substations, which resemble attractive bungalows in construction, were built at a cost of $18,000 each. Each has a dormitory, a kitchen and breakfast room combined, a locker room, shower baths and a general living room.

Laurel Street Station and Sub-station No. 3 at 855 St. Ferdinand Street were historically nearly identical in appearance. Both are located on corner lots and each accommodated about 6 firemen. However, the St. Ferdinand Street station, which sits at the corner of St. Ferdinand Street and South Boulevard across from an on-ramp for the elevated Interstate-10 expressway, has suffered a loss of integrity. The building was de-commissioned as a fire station in 1978 and converted into a women's rehabilitation facility, which remains in operation today. Exterior alterations are found primarily on the South Boulevard-facing elevation and include the addition of an exterior metal fire stair, a 1-story CMU addition at the rear of the engine room, and a concrete and metal access ramp connecting to the front porch. On the interior, the garage openings in both engine rooms have been walled off from the interior and blocked with new partitioned rooms. A platform and stair have been added at the rear of the South Boulevard engine room to meet the floor level of the adjacent St. Ferdinand Street engine room, which has been partitioned into bathrooms, closets, and bedrooms. No original finishes are visible on the 1^st floor; the ceilings are dropped and the floors are covered with vinyl tile. The kitchen and living rooms are in their original locations. The original stair has been carpeted and enclosed. On the 2^nd floor, the dormitory and locker room spaces are intact. The original wood lockers have been relocated into the dormitory, and the bathroom has been enlarged and reconfigured. The fireman's pole has been removed.

Sub-station No. 2 at 542 S. 15^th Street is the smallest of the 1920s sub-stations. Done in the Mission Revival style, it is 1 story in height and contains only 1 engine room. The facade consists of a central inset porch with stuccoed porch piers and 2 end bays marked by front gables with curved parapets, quatrefoil vents, and applied ornament. The North Bay houses the engine room. Doors and windows are boarded up but some wood casement windows are partially visible. The historic red-tile roof has been replaced with red standing-seam metal.

Central Station, which housed the department's headquarters, was not designed to resemble a residence but nevertheless contained all of the latest technologies and presented a splendid commercial front. A 2-story Gothic Revival-style building with a striking polychrome terra-cotta facade, it housed a large garage and several pieces of equipment, offices for fire department headquarters, a lounge, and dormitories for 24 firemen. A drill tower was located at the rear of the building's courtyard.

Building Description

Constructed in 1924-25, Laurel Street Station (Fire Sub-station No. 1) is a 2-story former fire station located at the northeast corner of Laurel and N. 18^th Streets in the Mid City neighborhood of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was designed by New Orleans architect William T. Nolan in the Mediterranean Revival style, one of many popular revival styles for domestic architecture following World War I. It is one of 4 fire stations that the City of Baton Rouge constructed in the 1920s: one central downtown fire station (now known as Bogan Fire Station) and 3 sub-stations. The 3 sub-stations-the subject structure, 855 St. Ferdinand Street, and 542 S. 15^th Street-were specifically designed to resemble private residences. These residential stations, known as "bungalow-type" stations, first appeared in the early 20^th Century in response to several factors, including improvements to firefighting equipment, changes in firefighting procedures and administration, and the advent of zoning and the automobile, which spurred the development of new residential districts.

Laurel Street station is slightly set back from the public right-of-way and is fronted by shallow lawns on its two street-facing elevations (Laurel and N. 18^th Streets). The immediate setting is characterized by tree-lined streets, low-rise commercial buildings, and surface parking lots. Sanborn Fire Insurance maps indicate that, in addition to commercial activity, the area also historically contained numerous small single-family dwellings, primarily shotgun houses and bungalows, most of which have been demolished within the past 50 years. To the east of the station, just across N. 19^th Street, is Magnolia Cemetery, a spacious, shady burial ground established in the mid-19^th century.

Laurel Street Station consists of a concrete foundation and bearing walls of structural clay tile clad in lightly textured stucco. Its shallow-pitched gable-on-hip roof is covered in red barrel tiles and features open eaves that extend beyond the wall plane, exposed rafter tails, and decorative supporting brackets. The gable peaks face east and west and consist of wood louvers and decorative red-tile finial cones. The building's one chimney, which rises from the original 1^st-floor kitchen below, is tapered and clad in textured stucco with applied painted-brick geometric ornamentation. Separate shed/hip roofs covered with red barrel tiles protect the entrances to the station's two engine rooms, which open onto Laurel Street (south) and N. 18^th Street (west) and meet to form an L at the building's northeast corner. These two engine rooms, which resemble large garages, are the only exterior clues that this building once served an institutional rather than a strictly residential purpose. Historically, the engine room doors were wood double doors with 12-light windows and metal strap hinges. One pair had been replaced with a modern overhead garage door by the 1970s, and the second pair in the 1980s.

Another prominent exterior feature is the 2-story L-shaped porch, which wraps the building's southwest corner and marks the location of the primary pedestrian entrance on Laurel Street. The porch is clad in lightly textured stucco with applied geometric ornament above and around its arched openings. The arches, sills, and geometric ornamentation are painted brick. The porch is accessible from the street via 3 painted-concrete steps. The 2^nd-floor porch is accessible from the former dormitory via multi-light French doors. The porch flooring is painted concrete and wood on the 1^st and 2^nd floors, respectively.

The majority of the station's original painted-wood windows and doors are intact. The pedestrian entrance at the 15-floor porch consists of a single-leaf wood door with 6 lights over 2 vertical panels and a multi-light transom above. The doors to the 2^nd-floor porch are 6-light French doors with multi-light transoms above. The two exterior doors on the east elevation providing pedestrian access to the Laurel Street engine room have been replaced with flush-metal doors. The windows throughout the building are multi-light wood casements, some with multi-light transoms above. A handful of windows are boarded up on the exterior but the windows are intact underneath. Some window openings have modern security bars installed on the interior. Below the 2^nd-floor windows on the Laurel Street elevation is an original window box on stucco-clad supports.

There are three original wall sconces extant on the exterior: two flanking the garage opening to the N. 18^th Street engine room and one on the east elevation. The fixtures are cast metal with large yellow glass globes. One globe was recently shattered by vandals.

The 1^st-floor layout is largely intact and consists of a living room, kitchen/dining room, and two engine rooms. The living quarters sit 3 steps higher than the engine rooms as originally intended, which distinguishes the change in use between the spaces. The living room is entered directly from the front porch. To the right of the entrance is a staircase to the 2^nd floor. While this is the location of the historic stair, the staircase itself was rebuilt in the 1980s; at that time, a second staircase was also added to provide direct access from the N. 18^th Street engine room to the 2^nd floor. The two engine rooms are large open volumes designed to accommodate fire trucks and equipment; the rears of both rooms have been partitioned into a small bathroom/storage. Interior finishes were simple and easy to clean. Throughout the 1^st floor, the concrete floors or intact or covered with vinyl tile, and the majority of walls and ceilings are plaster on metal lath. Dropped ceilings were added in the engine rooms and some surfaces were covered with gypsum board, but in several locations the plaster ceilings are visible underneath. The paneled-wood interior doors original to the 1 floor have been replaced with wood or metal doors.

The 2^nd floor layout was designed to include a large open dormitory, a spacious locker room, and showers/bathrooms. The former locker room is largely intact but has been expanded into the former shower area, which was downsized into a single bathroom and closet in the 1980s. The brass fireman's pole was located in the vicinity of this closet but was removed in the 1960s. The dormitory was partitioned into 2 large rooms and a bathroom with a kitchen installed along one wall. Nevertheless, these areas retain an open feel in keeping with their historic role as communal living quarters. The historic wood floors and plaster walls and ceilings are intact throughout. The minimal painted-wood trim, including baseboards and casings, is largely intact. Interior doors have been replaced with wood-slab doors.

The station was renovated in the 1960s and again in the 1980s. In the 1960s, updates included the removal of the brass fireman's pole and the enclosure of the original staircase in conjunction with the introduction of air-conditioning. A larger renovation took place in the 1980s to further modernize the facility and adapt the building for use as a combined fire station and EMS facility. At that time, an HVAC system was installed and dropped ceilings were added in the engine rooms; the original staircase was rebuilt and a 2^nd stair was added; vinyl tile flooring was installed in some rooms over the original concrete; some interior and exterior doors were replaced; and the above-described partition walls in the engine rooms and on the 2^nd floor were added.