Port Townsend’s Fire Bell Tower is the last remaining wooden fire bell tower in the United States. The seventy-five-foot wooden structure was built in 1890 to hold a one thousand five hundred pound brass bell and the city’s new nine hundred dollar fire engine. Its ringing bell rallied the community to fight fires, using coded signals to indicate the location and severity of a blaze. In October 1889, the American Telegraph Company began erecting poles and stringing wires equipped with boxes containing signaling devices for transmitting fire alarms, and Gamewell Company Excelsior model fire alarm boxes were installed at strategic locations throughout the city. By 1933, twenty-one were in service. An indicator unit in the fire station at City Hall received transmissions, and its fourteen-inch brass bell rang in a timed pattern while the device decoded the signal and displayed the specific alarm box number. Firefighters checked the number on the indicator and rushed to the fire, while a bell ringer unit transmitted the coded location of the pull-box alarm to the Bell Tower. A firefighter at the station then selected how many times the bell ringer would cycle the coded signal for one-, two-, or three-alarm fires. Since 1890, the wooden tower has weathered countless storms, and every decade or so the community has come together to raise funds for its restoration. In March 2004, the Washington State Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation named Port Townsend’s Fire Bell Tower, restored by the Jefferson County Historical Society and the City of Port Townsend, the recipient of the 2004 State Historic Preservation Officer’s Award for Resource Stewardship.

Photo: J. J. Prats

Photo: J. J. Prats

Photo: J. J. Prats

Port Townsend, Washington · USA