The Rise of the Fireman’s Pole. Firemen sitting by their pole (1905). In 1736, Benjamin Franklin jump-started the first effort to build formalized firehouses.

But as fire poles began to be phased out, wrote Michelle O’Donnell for The New York Times in 2005, veteran firefighters were unsettled by the change in something they had considered normal.

In 1880 the Boston Fire Department installed a brass pole, the type still used today. Within a decade, poles stood in firehouses across the nation, and later in Canada, Britain and beyond.

An African American firefighter played a key role in developing a staple of the fire station -- the fireman's pole. In honor of Black History Month, News On 6 spoke with a fireman and shared the ...

In 1878, a blow was struck for efficiency, fun, and iconography. That’s a rare combination, so let’s take a look at the team that invented the fireman’s pole.