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Lewis County Fire District #2 Mission Statement
The Toledo Fire Department is devoted to protecting lives and property by providing professional emergency services for our community, it's visitors and neighbors with compassion, courtesy, and integrity. |
About Toledo Fire Department,
Lewis County Fire District 2
Toledo Fire Department was formed by a vote of the people by special election on May 10, 1947.
Toledo Community Ambulance was licensed to operate by the Department of State on May 2, 1958.
Toledo Fire Department became Lewis County Fire Protection District 2 and became a separate entity from the City of Toledo on February 3, 1986.
Toledo Fire Department’s first fire apparatus was a 1939 Dodge Open Cab Pumper, which was repurchased by the Toledo Fire Department Volunteer Association in April 2006. The Toledo Fire Department Volunteer Association is in the process of restoring the apparatus.
Lewis County Fire District 2 currently on average has twenty volunteers, who donate their time to serve the citizens of Toledo and outlaying areas. Lewis County Fire District 2 extends over ninety-eight square miles and is inhabited by approximately 5,300 residences.
Lewis County Fire District 2 maintains three Fire Stations to best serve the citizens of Toledo.
Lewis County Fire District 2 is governed by three elected commissioners which serve for a six year term. Commissioners are responsible for the overall operational and financial determinations of the district. Daily operations are managed by a full-time District Chief, who is employed at the will of the commissioners.
Toledo's History
Toledo was officially incorporated on October 10, 1892. Toledo was named by Celeste Rochon after a pioneer side wheel paddle steamer operated by Captain Oren Kellogg of the Kellogg Transportation Company. The boat traveled the Cowlitz River. A picture of the riverboat is hanging downtown next to the town library .
The first school in Toledo was called the OK School. It was a one room school house. Most of the kids that lived out of the town limits had to ride a boat across the river to and from school until the bridge was built.
The current Middle School was originally the High School until the new High School was built in the late 70s. While the Middle School was being remodeled in 1995 the children were relocated for the year to St. Mary's Church and School.
The Cowlitz Indian Tribe made a special Totem Pole for Toledo High School. The town has always used the "Indian" as the school's mascot (after receiving permission from the tribe). Recently, a painting was donated to the High School of "Old Ike" who was the last full blooded Cowlitz Indian. His portrait still hangs within the halls of the Toledo High School.
The first school in Toledo was called the OK School. It was a one room school house. Most of the kids that lived out of the town limits had to ride a boat across the river to and from school until the bridge was built.
The current Middle School was originally the High School until the new High School was built in the late 70s. While the Middle School was being remodeled in 1995 the children were relocated for the year to St. Mary's Church and School.
The Cowlitz Indian Tribe made a special Totem Pole for Toledo High School. The town has always used the "Indian" as the school's mascot (after receiving permission from the tribe). Recently, a painting was donated to the High School of "Old Ike" who was the last full blooded Cowlitz Indian. His portrait still hangs within the halls of the Toledo High School.
The Story of Toledo Schools, 1882 - present
Courtesy of Jake Morgan article from The Cheese Days Program 2015
Jake Morgan is a 1997 graduate of Toledo High School
We can all remember our favorite school teachers and what the classrooms were like when we were students, but children grow up, teachers retire and are replaced by new teachers, and school buildings get older and also get replaced with newer ones.
According to information from the book "The Toledo Community Story," the first official schoolhouse in Toledo, Washington was built in 1882 on the south side of Cowlitz Street, between Fourth and Fifth Streets. The building was referred to as a "little shanty' with split-cedar benches that accommodated 8-12 students. The Toledo student population quickly outgrew the structure.
A new, two-room schoolhouse was constructed in 1889 on the hill where the Toledo Middle School now stands. In 1901 a four-room building with a bell tower was built nearby for both grade and high school students.
At the start of the 20th Century, Toledo had wooden sidewalks and kerosene street lamps. Our town also had two general stores, two hotels, two saloons, two doctors, a drug store, a meat market, a grist mill and a blacksmith. Travels could rent a horse team and buggy for $1.50 a day and steamer boats still ferried passengers and goods to and from Portland.
A hundred years ago in 1915, there were more than a dozen small schoolhouses located in the greater Toledo area with names like Knab, Windom, Sunnyside, Lacamas, Osceola, Eadonia, Salmon Creek and the O.K. School, but these began to disappear as the school districts consolidated and stared brining children to Toledo on school buses.
A new brick high school was built in 1922 at St. Helens Street and State Route 505, where the Fir Lawn Funeral Chapel building now stands. The main road through Toledo was originally called the Oregon Trail before it was renamed Highway 99 and later Jackson Highway. The high school offered courses in bookkeeping, shorthand, typewriting and commercial arithmetic. Students had to buy their own books and pay to rent typewriters from the school.
A teacher's contract from 1923 required that female teachers not be married or keep company with men, nor ride in carriages or automobiles with men who were not related to them, and to be at home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m Teachers were not allowed to smoke, drink alcohol, wear bright colors, dye their hair or be seen loitering in downtown ice cream shops.
The four-room, grade school building with the bell tower (where the middle school is now) was outgrown and replaced in 1934 and the newer building became the new high school. The previous high school (on the site of the current funeral chapel) became the grade school. That building was replaced in 1940.
Many longtime Toledo residents who are still alive can remember attending Toledo schools during the mid-1930s and 1940s when principal Dewey Turner (who was also a teacher, bus driver and a 1920 Toledo graduate) would command respect from unruly boys by slapping a large leather razor strap on the their desks.
"Our childhood here was typical of so many farm families in the area - we worked!" said Don Buswell, a 1939 Toledo graduate and 2003 Toledo Big Cheese. "Usually our chore duties began when we were about six or seven years old and stared with milking and taking care of chickens. Then there was the haying, land clearing, gardening, wood cutting, threshing, manure hauling and fence building."
Toledo began planning for a new elementary school in 1948 when the school had more than 300 students. The town held ten mill levies to raise funds. Six acres owned by Pendleton Miller were gifted to the school and building was completed in late 1952 at a cost of $346,742, about half of which was provided by the state board of education. The new, one-story building with the flat rood had 12 classrooms, a multi-purpose room, a library, a kitchen, health room, teacher's room and other offices and supply rooms. Each classroom had wash basins and two toilets.
Former Winlock teacher and coach George Murdock (and 1989 Big Cheese) became superintendent of the Toledo School District in 1955 and began working to expand the high school grounds and level the large field at the present location of the middle school. Teacher Gary Springer became principal of the Toledo Elementary School in 1964 when Dewey Turner retired after 33 years. In those days, boys who misbehaved at school were spanked with a wooden paddle. Springer continued as principal of the elementary school until his retirement in 1987, and was named a Big Cheese in 2009 with his wife Marge.
In 1967, state projections indicated the Toledo School District was about to expand again and a special building fund of $2.5 million was created for a new high school. A partially wooded, 40-acre site on a hill north of Toledo was purchased from Toledo graduate Ray Wallace (a 1996 Big Cheese) and construction was completed on the present-day high school in the summer of 1975. Denny Clark was named the new high school principal and held that role until his retirement in 2001.
The former high school building was remodeled in 1975 to become the new middle school with Mick Filla named as the principal. This building had a large gymnasium with a stage, wide hallways and classrooms with large sliding black-boards. In 1994, the elementary school was remodeled to its present state, and in 1996, the middle school was also completely remodeled. Toledo students attended classes at St. Mary's while the renovations to the schools were completed.
The present high school building is 40 years old and is in need of modernization.
The Toledo Historical Society will have a table in the city park during Cheese Days to answer questions about our town's history and sell paperback copies of "The Toledo Community Story'" There will be a large map in the park showing the locations and pictures of all the previous Toledo-area schools, most of which no longer exist.
Most of the information for the article came from "The Toledo Community Story," which was first published in 1952 and revised in 1976, as well as from interviews and past issues of the Cheese Days Magazine. The Toledo Historical Society is planning to publish an updated version of the book in early 2016 and requests updated historical information from the community.
According to information from the book "The Toledo Community Story," the first official schoolhouse in Toledo, Washington was built in 1882 on the south side of Cowlitz Street, between Fourth and Fifth Streets. The building was referred to as a "little shanty' with split-cedar benches that accommodated 8-12 students. The Toledo student population quickly outgrew the structure.
A new, two-room schoolhouse was constructed in 1889 on the hill where the Toledo Middle School now stands. In 1901 a four-room building with a bell tower was built nearby for both grade and high school students.
At the start of the 20th Century, Toledo had wooden sidewalks and kerosene street lamps. Our town also had two general stores, two hotels, two saloons, two doctors, a drug store, a meat market, a grist mill and a blacksmith. Travels could rent a horse team and buggy for $1.50 a day and steamer boats still ferried passengers and goods to and from Portland.
A hundred years ago in 1915, there were more than a dozen small schoolhouses located in the greater Toledo area with names like Knab, Windom, Sunnyside, Lacamas, Osceola, Eadonia, Salmon Creek and the O.K. School, but these began to disappear as the school districts consolidated and stared brining children to Toledo on school buses.
A new brick high school was built in 1922 at St. Helens Street and State Route 505, where the Fir Lawn Funeral Chapel building now stands. The main road through Toledo was originally called the Oregon Trail before it was renamed Highway 99 and later Jackson Highway. The high school offered courses in bookkeeping, shorthand, typewriting and commercial arithmetic. Students had to buy their own books and pay to rent typewriters from the school.
A teacher's contract from 1923 required that female teachers not be married or keep company with men, nor ride in carriages or automobiles with men who were not related to them, and to be at home between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m Teachers were not allowed to smoke, drink alcohol, wear bright colors, dye their hair or be seen loitering in downtown ice cream shops.
The four-room, grade school building with the bell tower (where the middle school is now) was outgrown and replaced in 1934 and the newer building became the new high school. The previous high school (on the site of the current funeral chapel) became the grade school. That building was replaced in 1940.
Many longtime Toledo residents who are still alive can remember attending Toledo schools during the mid-1930s and 1940s when principal Dewey Turner (who was also a teacher, bus driver and a 1920 Toledo graduate) would command respect from unruly boys by slapping a large leather razor strap on the their desks.
"Our childhood here was typical of so many farm families in the area - we worked!" said Don Buswell, a 1939 Toledo graduate and 2003 Toledo Big Cheese. "Usually our chore duties began when we were about six or seven years old and stared with milking and taking care of chickens. Then there was the haying, land clearing, gardening, wood cutting, threshing, manure hauling and fence building."
Toledo began planning for a new elementary school in 1948 when the school had more than 300 students. The town held ten mill levies to raise funds. Six acres owned by Pendleton Miller were gifted to the school and building was completed in late 1952 at a cost of $346,742, about half of which was provided by the state board of education. The new, one-story building with the flat rood had 12 classrooms, a multi-purpose room, a library, a kitchen, health room, teacher's room and other offices and supply rooms. Each classroom had wash basins and two toilets.
Former Winlock teacher and coach George Murdock (and 1989 Big Cheese) became superintendent of the Toledo School District in 1955 and began working to expand the high school grounds and level the large field at the present location of the middle school. Teacher Gary Springer became principal of the Toledo Elementary School in 1964 when Dewey Turner retired after 33 years. In those days, boys who misbehaved at school were spanked with a wooden paddle. Springer continued as principal of the elementary school until his retirement in 1987, and was named a Big Cheese in 2009 with his wife Marge.
In 1967, state projections indicated the Toledo School District was about to expand again and a special building fund of $2.5 million was created for a new high school. A partially wooded, 40-acre site on a hill north of Toledo was purchased from Toledo graduate Ray Wallace (a 1996 Big Cheese) and construction was completed on the present-day high school in the summer of 1975. Denny Clark was named the new high school principal and held that role until his retirement in 2001.
The former high school building was remodeled in 1975 to become the new middle school with Mick Filla named as the principal. This building had a large gymnasium with a stage, wide hallways and classrooms with large sliding black-boards. In 1994, the elementary school was remodeled to its present state, and in 1996, the middle school was also completely remodeled. Toledo students attended classes at St. Mary's while the renovations to the schools were completed.
The present high school building is 40 years old and is in need of modernization.
The Toledo Historical Society will have a table in the city park during Cheese Days to answer questions about our town's history and sell paperback copies of "The Toledo Community Story'" There will be a large map in the park showing the locations and pictures of all the previous Toledo-area schools, most of which no longer exist.
Most of the information for the article came from "The Toledo Community Story," which was first published in 1952 and revised in 1976, as well as from interviews and past issues of the Cheese Days Magazine. The Toledo Historical Society is planning to publish an updated version of the book in early 2016 and requests updated historical information from the community.
