Menlo Park Fire Station 1 turns 70 years old

Seventy years ago, in June of 1955, the Menlo Park Fire Protection District relocated and began operations at it new Headquarters Fire Station 1 at 300 Middlefield Road, adjacent to Saint Patrick’s Seminary and near Willow Road.

Its first and previous headquarters fire station had been located at 1077 Merrill Street in downtown near the train station. (The structure was torn down in the 1980’s and replaced by Menlo Center). The smaller, brick fire station was built in 1919 and paid for by the War Department that was supporting Camp Fremont, which was training Army Soldiers for World War I. The Fire Department was mostly volunteers at the time, most of whom would respond from their nearby homes.

Recently appointed Fire Chief George B. Carter said at the time that the new 6,400 square foot, three apparatus bay fire station was the largest in San Mateo County and the 60 foot high wood training tower was the tallest building in Menlo Park.

Designed by architect Leslie Nicoles and built by Sibley G & I Company at a cost of $140,000, the new fire station would better provide fire and emergency services to surrounding Menlo Park, Atherton and portions of unincorporated San Mateo County areas in the growing Fire District.

Chief Carter emphasized that the new station was designed for low maintenance and long service, predicting it would serve the Fire District through 1992. Impressive in both size and layout, the new station was built with a 17 bed sleeping dormitory for full time firefighter use. Located directly above the apparatus bays, it was connected by three brass slide poles allowing firefighters to quickly gain access to their fire apparatus for rapid emergency response.

In addition, the new fire station included many first time features compared to the previous station, such as a conference room for fire commission meetings. Past commission meetings had previously been forced to be held in the small and crowded fire chiefs office. The fire chief, fire prevention bureau and station captains all now had their own individual offices. No one was more grateful for this development than the station captains whose single desk had previously been located in the lavatory of the old fire station.

A new dispatch room with modern radio equipment was added along with a subsurface basement smoke training room located below a multi-story training tower, which was next to an expansive practice drill yard.

The entire project was started based on a 1948 assessment looking at the need for the construction of a new headquarters fire station. The National Board of Fire Underwriters had been requested by former and retired Fire Chief Thomas F. Cuff (1932 – 1955) to provide not only the need assessment, but the best location to place a new headquarters fire station.

The proposal and project were however not without controversy. The Fire Underwriters recommended the fire district build the new headquarters station near Hoover Street and Oak Grove Avenue. Chief Cuff and the fire commissioners began their property search in ernest and had entered into a $15,000 contract for multiple property lots in the recommended area when the local neighbors were alerted to the prospect of gaining a fire station as a “neighbor”.

What ensued next can only be described as much finger pointing, back and forth meetings, multiple news articles, editorials, letters to the editor and ultimately 91 local residents signing a petition asking the chief and fire commissioners to NOT re-locate the headquarters fire station to this neighborhood after Chief Cuff and the commissioners had issued a public statement in April of 1948 listing multiple reasons why Menlo Park needed a new headquarters fire station, including potential lower fire insurance costs due to better fire ratings.

Ultimately, a compromise was agreed upon to build a much smaller, 3,000 square foot, single company fire station at 700 Oak Grove Avenue. After securing bond funding, fire station 6 was opened in 1953. Meanwhile, discussions with Saint Patrick’s Seminary and the Archdiocese of San Francisco started in September of 1951 to also purchase land for a new headquarters station on Middlefield Road.

The Archdiocese of San Francisco records show that initially the trustees were unanimous in their agreement to sell the fire district proposed property measuring 100 x 125 feet near the southwest corner of the seminary. This was followed by the Seminaries Building Committee assigning a proposed value of the property at an estimated $5,000. Additional concerns by the building committee was that they prevent the fire station from being a possible “eyesore”.

Eventually, in January 1953 the fire district and the archdiocese agreed to a 130 x 150 foot property lot located at the corner of Santa Monica Drive and Middlefield Road for a $10,000 sale price.

After many additions, changes, remodels, temporary seismic retrofitting after the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake and several feasibility studies over the years, fire station 1 is scheduled to be replaced in the next two years (2027) according to Fire Chief Mark Lorenzen.

An additional acre of land was purchased from the Archdiocese of San Francisco in 2017 for $6.6 million dollars. A proposed new station 1 complex should be completed by 2032, according to the fire districts web-site. The larger facility will include a new fire station, training center and will relocate the fire administrative offices and fire prevention bureau, which moved down the street in 2009, but plans to return to a new administrative center, co-located at the main fire headquarters site.

The fire board has approved a not to exceed budget of $125 million dollars for this project which will be sourced from existing district fiscal reserves with NO impact, additional fees or taxes placed on local tax paying residents and/or businesses.

These improvements will facilitate the fire districts ability to meet the future fire and emergency service needs of the community as proposals for the redevelopment of the former Sunset Magazine Headquarters, former United States Geological Survey (USGS) Campus and current Stanford Research Institute (SRI) International Campus projects come up for review, agreement and construction.

The fire district currently operates a three person paramedic engine company and two person paramedic rescue squad out of fire station 1. An additional tillered aerial ladder truck will more than likely be needed to address these proposed multi-story, higher density project developments to create a multi-capable and effective firefighting force. The current fire station 1 cannot support this enhanced apparatus configuration.

Photo: In May 1955 Menlo Park Firefighters, Chief Officers and Commissioners pose for a District photograph in front of the almost completed new Headquarters Fire Station 1, located at 300 Middlefield Road Credit: Menlo Fire Photo Archives

Retired Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman served from 1981 to 2021. He is the Menlo Park Fire Protection District Historian