CHIEF MONTES DE OCA

Frank Montes De Oca - a veteran of the fire and rescue service in Orange County, Florida - served as Springfield's fire chief in the late 1990s. During his watch, advanced life support (ALS) was expanded to all of the city's fire stations. He was the second chief officer hired from another fire department, the first being Samuel Hunter in 1904. After leaving Springfield, Montes De Oca served as fire chief in Osceola County, Florida.

Photo: Osceola County website

FROG AND SWITCH - 1907

On April 23-24, 1907, flames consumed the Indianapolis Frog and Switch factory in Springfield, which was owned by Charles Warren Fairbanks, vice president of the United States in the administration of Theodore Roosevelt (1905 -1909).

The factory, which covered more than two acres, was one of the few structures to survive the East Street Shops conflagration - the worst fire in Springfield's history - a few years earlier. Fairbanks had made a fortune as a railroad attorney.

Fairbanks' factory manufactured railroad switching equiment. A frog is ``a device on intersecting railroad tracks that permits wheels to cross the junction,'' according to the American Heritage Dictionary.

The story on the fire appeared on the front page of The New York Times:

``SPRINGFIELD, Ohio, Wednesday, April 24. - The Indianapolis Frog and Switch Works, owned by Vice President Fairbanks, was destroyed by fire last night. The loss was $250,000. The Kelley Road Roller Company and piano plate works are threatened.''

One of the city's newspapers, the Springfield Gazette, said ``a motorman of a passing car'' reported the fire to the Central Engine House by telephone at 10:45 p.m. on Nov. 23. The night watchman, named Wellington, also sounded the alarm from Box 163.

Within 15 minutes ``the entire roof was ablaze and a few minutes after it fell with a mighty crash,'' the Gazette reported.

Realizing the building was lost, Springfield Fire Chief Samuel Hunter ordered firefighters to prevent the flames from spreading, the Gazette reported. Hunter also sounded a general alarm, calling all of the city's fire companies to the inferno.

``The fire made a huge red glow that could be seen from all parts of the city, and it looked as if the eastern part of the city was on fire,'' the Gazette reported.

Natural gas explosions may have caused the fires as residents near the Indianapolis Switch and Frog plant, which was built in the 1880s, ``heard three muffled reports shortly before they noticed the fire,'' the Gazette reported. Furnaces in the shops were fueled by natural gas.

Hunter, quoted by the Gazette, said: ``It is one of those kind of bad fires that is hard to solve. Of course there is no doubt but the flames were fed by gas all the time the department was fighting them. But when the company had turned off the pressure, the deed had been done and the plant was in ashes.''

The Gazette said: ''The most fortunate part of the whole affair (was) that no one was killed'' although ``Fireman Harry Huffman of Engine House No. 5 had several fingers cut while pushing a hose through a window.''

Additionally, Fairbanks ``was loud in his praise of the work of Chief Hunter and the fire department, and stated that they did all that a human person could do,'' according to the Gazette.