At a site overlooking the entrance to York Harbor and the Atlantic Ocean, near the Stage Neck Inn and the former Marshall Hotel, the York Village & Corner Fire Department grew out of a catastrophic fire at the original Marshall House in 1916. Although historic records show an earlier fire department hose cart at Sentry Hill Road and a one-horse cart at York Corner, the department’s official beginning came from the scale of the Marshall House fire. Under Chief Albert Newick of York Harbor, the early organization used primitive firefighting equipment and bought several lengths of fire hose from the Boston Hose Company. Immediately after the fire, the York Village and Corner Ever-ready Volunteer Fire Company was established, with its first quarters in a converted schoolhouse in York Village on the present-day site of the York Village Fire Station. Around 1923, it was reorganized as the York Volunteer Department. Early membership was limited to men age 21 and older, and recruitment was strong, with speculation that three quarters of the town’s eligible young men became volunteer firefighters. The first fire engines are believed to have included a secondhand Knox steam-powered fire engine and an early ladder wagon; the Knox was unreliable, and when its boiler was lit to power the fire pump but the tractor would not start, it had to be pushed out of the station with smoke belching from the smokestack. In 1923, the department hired its first permanent firefighter, William Sullivan, who lived at the station, cared for the building and equipment, answered fire alarms, and later became fire chief before his death in 1950. York families supplied generations of volunteer firefighters, including the Ramsdell family, and Charles Ramsdel became the next paid fireman to live in the station with his family. As the community grew, the apparatus became more modern, and the old wooden fire station, once a school building, hosted many functions. In 1966, the department marked its 50th anniversary with a gala parade and muster. Firemen bought new apparatus and even built some of the tank trucks that responded to fires in York and surrounding communities. American LaFrance was a popular firefighting vehicle in York, and at one time the station housed multiple trucks from that manufacturer. York Harbor residents also formed the Redshirts as a benevolent group supporting the local volunteers, and their colorful parade uniforms appeared in many firemen’s parades.