Engine House No. 7 (Washington, D.C.)

[1] On April 25, 1864, the US government passed legislation allowing the district to form a part-time paid fire department.

[3] The firehouse was considered a model of efficient design, and was equipped with an 1885 450 GPM (gallon per minute) Clapp & Jones steam engine with an 1879 McDermott Bros. hose reel carriage.

[1] Installed just one month before the dedication of the newly completed Washington Monument, the Engine Company at 931 R Street was witness to some of the more spectacular and notorious fires and disasters of the District’s history.

7 was also present at the January 1922 roof collapse at the Knickerbocker Theater, located at the corner of 18th Street and Columbia Road, N.W., which resulted in the deaths of 97 people.

According to the report: In other words, instead of simply combining two stations located in Southwest Washington, leaving the company of firefighters based in Northwest where they were, the Committee made its decision based on color lines, making the extra effort to combine white Engine Co. No.

These prejudiced biases also affected the upgrades and renovations of the force’s equipment and facilities, for the Committee Report decided to make improvements only for the combined housing of these two new all-white companies, and they did not recommend any for the all-black Engine Co. No.

[1] With the Executive Order of 1962 officially desegregating the Department, many of the long-institutionalized racial tensions became even more pronounced.

As both all-white and all-black fire companies were forcibly split apart, one firefighter, originally stationed as part of Engine Co. No.

4, until the October 1976 when budgetary and other practical considerations during the tenure of Mayor Walter Washington forced the reorganization of the District Fire Department yet again, moving Engine Co. No.

7 was purchased under the District’s surplus property disposal program by harpsichord makers Tom and Barbara Wolfe.

The Wolfes manufactured harpsichords there until the summer of 1992, when District of Columbia artist Craig Kraft and Adrienne Beck purchased the building and renovated the lower level to become a studio.

Today, many of the original architectural elements of the building remain, including the brick façade, double doors, clothing lockers, and switchboard.