Festive firehouses were big holiday hits
Like magic in 1948, a dozen teams of reindeer flew into San Francisco.
They settled on firehouses across the city, along with wrapped presents the size of refrigerators, Christmas carol soundtracks on loop, moving props and garages reimagined as fireplaces. San Francisco’s fire stations were so covered with holiday cheer, that in some photos, it was unclear how fire trucks were able to enter and exit the buildings.
The San Francisco Fire Department decoration contest is one of the most joyful and impressive holiday traditions in
S. F. history, a coordination of city departments that brought local children a sort of early Disneyland, six years before the park opened. And yet, it only lasted three years, ending in the most San Francisco way possible: with bitterness and political fallout.
The shortlived tradition came as a surprise to San Franciscans, and reportedly, to the firefighters themselves. They learned in early December 1948 that a $ 1,000 prize would be given by a citizens group to the bestdecorated firehouse. Each house had a $ 50 spending limit.
“The city’s firemen have thrown themselves into the decorating business with a fervor as hot as any fire they have doused,” The Chronicle reported on Dec. 20, 1948, the first mention of the contest in the paper. “In the course of their decorating spree, the firemen dug up artistic talents that may have been unknown, even to themselves.”
The initial year had a throwntogether quality, but was nonetheless impressive. One station raided the back of department stores for broken mannequins and assembled them into a choir. Others went overthetop with lighting. One firehouse had a Santa Claus that loomed over the neighborhood with glowing eyes.
Western Neighborhoods Project executive director Nicole Meldahl said the topic is still discussed among members of the nonprofit historical organization, where color photos of the Fire Department are on display, along with an essay by Robert and Marilyn Katzman.
“A lot of the decorations were so elaborate. There would be
animated Nativity scenes,” Meldahl said. “Our mayor was really proud of it — we were the only city doing this at the time.”
By 1950, the entire city seemed to be participating. The Chronicle ran maps with a route that included all the decorated stations. The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency got involved to help lowincome families, who could show up at their nearest fire station and take one of three 17station bus tours.
Volunteer groups brought cocoa for the children and meals for the firefighters. The 29 Engine Station on Divisadero Street had an entire animated North Pole scene, with moving parts and fake snow spilling out onto the sidewalk.
“The world was full of news of war and price curbs and mobilization — but for 46 grinning, jostling kids in the green and white Muni bus, it was a world full of Christmas magic,” The Chronicle reported on Dec. 19, 1950. “There were brightcolored lights, recorded Christmas carols, winter snow scenes, candy canes and a paper
Santa Claus sporting a spunglass beard, and blinking through two 1,000watt eyes.”
But that year marked the end of the tradition. When the city voted down a firefighter pay raise in November 1951, the decorators revealed the obvious: That the displays were costing far more than the spending limit, and the money had been coming out of firefighters’ pockets.
An official “said the firemen could not afford the expense of decorations and lights this year because they had contributed heavily toward the campaign for the passage of Proposition A,” The Chronicle reported in 1951. “Proposition A, defeated by the voters on election day, would have given the city’s firemen and policemen a pay scale geared to changes in the cost of living.”
Over the next two years, city groups tried to revive the tradition, offering more money and volunteer help. San Francisco Mayor Elmer Robinson attempted to intercede, but the firefighters voted against a revival twice. One firefighter
told The Chronicle he wished the contest had never started.
Meldahl said the firehouse decorations of 19481950 are one of several San Francisco holiday traditions that seem almost impossible to imagine today. From 1927 to 1930, the San Francisco Examiner decorated a giant tree at Christmas Tree Point on Twin Peaks. (“When they took it up to Twin Peaks it was just a giant pole, a giant log. And then they trucked the branches up separately.”)
That celebration was scuttled by pressure from religious leader Clarence F. Pratt and his California Outdoor Christmas Tree Association, which convinced city leaders that cutting down trees was sinful, and people should decorate the trees in front of their houses.
The Western Neighborhoods Project has photos and stories of other longgone San Francisco traditions, including the West Portal train tunnel dressed up as Santa’s chimney and a Nativity scene in Lindley Meadow in Golden Gate Park, which included live actors and a flock of sheep that roamed the park through the first half of the 20th century. The Nativity display ended in 1977.
“By that time the sheep were all gone and they had to import sheep from a flock in Half Moon Bay,” Meldahl said. “It was a family tradition to get a cup of hot cocoa and drive by a live Nativity scene.”
So what’s left in 2020? This is one of those times when itisn’tlikeitusedtobe nostalgia clouds some of the special things that continue to occur. The children of 1949 would be mightily impressed by the pair of outdoor iceskating rinks, Embarcadero Center lights and the live reindeer that will once again this year visit California Academy of Sciences.
And the San Francisco Fire Department Instagram feed shows that many stations continue to decorate, usually starting on Dec. 1. ( A request to Fire Department officials to speak with a captain at a festive station house was met with a very 2020 response: “due to COVID” no interviews are being scheduled.)
From Nativity scenes staffed by actors to the Emporium department store Santa parade and roof rides, fire stations wrapped like presents, reindeer grazing on a living roof, and buildings that look like wrapped presents when viewed from across the Bay, the holidays never die in San Francisco.
We just find new places to gawk at in wonder.