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Coronet Hook & Ladder Co.
Due to a flurry of fires in Bellefonte in the late 1880s, a committee of the Underwriter's Association of the Middle Department of Pennsylvania was appointed to visit Bellefonte, visited Bellefonte and subsequently provide the Borough Council a list of suggestions that might be easily and readily applied for the prevention of losses.
In addition to improvements to the building code, one o the several suggestions was the "organization of a hook and ladder company, whose equipment shall consist of a truck with at least three ladders, one of which shall he at least fifty fast in length, with hooks, axes and fire buckets."
In response to their suggestion, a group of Bellefonte citizens, who at least included Wilbur Harris and Robert Beck, organized the Cornet Hook & Ladder Co., and presented them selves to the Bellefonte Borough Council at a meeting in February of 1887. Their equipment consisted of a Hays hook and ladder cart purchased for them by Bellefonte Borough.
It does not appear that they ever had a dedicated building in which to store their equipment, but rather keep their cart on a lot on East Howard street, likely the present site of the Logan Fire Co.
We have found several references of their activity at structure fires in the early 1890s.
Unfortunately, the company was disbanded in February of 1894, "owing to an inability to procure enough men to man their apparatus." Their Hays truck will be turned over to council and latter wound up in the hands of the Logan Fire Co.
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