View source for History Pages: 43 - Go, Team, Go: The First Team Sport in Santa Cruz, ca. 1880

'''For a table of contents, see '''[[History pages]].

Every year, Major League Baseball holds spring training to prepare for the new season, while college basketball is in the grip of March Madness. In the fall, our own Santa Cruz Warriors play basketball games in the "temporary" Kaiser Permanente Arena on Front Street But what was the first organized team sport in our town?

It wasn’t basketball or football - those games were still in their formative years in the 1880s. How about baseball? – close, but still a few years in the future. Lumberjack competitions? Sailing? Surfing? – team competition versions of those activities were all creations of the 20th century.

[[File:1880 - Alert hose co Sccfu-35.jpg|right|400px]]
In 1880, the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper announced the first race between hose teams. Wait - what the heck is a hose team? There were, as yet, few full-time firefighters, so volunteer firefighting companies formed in the 1870s to answer the call, with names like “Alert” (pictured at right) and “Pilot”. The companies were sponsored by business owners, and many volunteers were company employees.

[[File:SJB Alert hose cart 600px.jpg|left|600px]]
In the days when even the largest buildings were built of wood, before fire sprinklers and copious water supplies, fire was the biggest danger to life and property. The downtown water system begun by F. A. Hihn and Elihu Anthony in the late 1850s included fire hydrants, which made hose use possible. 

Early fire hoses were wound on two-wheeled carts, which were pulled to a fire’s location by teams of volunteers. The hose teams became the “first responders” of the fire companies - human teams could get geared up and moving faster than horse-drawn fire wagons. The hose cart in the photo at left may have come from Santa Cruz - you can see "Alert" painted on the chassis. This cart is on display in the Plaza Stables museum at San Juan Bautista State Historic Park.

[[File:1882_-_Alert_state_champs_Sccfu-36.jpg|right|280px]]
Speed of response is always important in firefighting, and fire companies took pride in having the fastest hose team. That pride evolved into competition, leading to the first races in 1880. Soon the sport went statewide, and the Alert Hose Company team from Santa Cruz took first place in 1882 (shown after their win in the photo at right). Countywide competitions continued into the 1890s. Even the kids got involved, forming teams like the “Junior Pilots”. 

[[File:Hook_and_ladder.jpg|left|600px]]


In 1877, the volunteer firefighters obtained a “hook and ladder” wagon (pictured at left), to be drawn by a human team (team members signed this copy of the "team photo"). Before expansion of the city’s water system made fire hydrants widely available, The best firefighting strategy was, after saving as much as possible from the burning building (with the help of the ladder), to pull down the burning frame with the hook to reduce the chances of fire spreading to neighboring structures.



Some notable local citizens were members of hose teams. For instance, [[Cowell family|Samuel H. Cowell]], son and heir of Henry Cowell, was a member of the Alert Hose Team in his younger days. Photos of Cowell from that time are rare, so it’s possible he’s in one of the photos reproduced here. [[Ely, Frank|Frank Ely]], a furniture store owner and member of the Pilot Hose Company, later became a Santa Cruz fire chief in the 1890s.

[[File:1895_-_Church_St_FS_Sccfu-37.jpg|right|400px]]




Major downtown fires kept the hose companies busy throughout the 1880s and into the 1890s. After the “Great Fire of 1894” destroyed a large portion of downtown (including the headquarters of the Pilot Hose Company on Pacific Avenue), the city teamed up with business owners to build a firehouse on Church Street (right), where the one fire wagon was kept.

Improved equipment and response times gradually reduced the need for human hose teams. As a result, the sport gradually lost popularity during the 1890s, and a colorful part of our local history was mostly forgotten.

==Sources==
* Santa Cruz Public Library Local History Photograph Gallery (check especially the photos from the Santa Cruz City Fire Fighters Union)
* Ross Eric Gibson, "Fighting fires and boredom with fun: Local History", ''Santa Cruz Sentinel'', September 13, 2021, A2:1.
* Jerry Ochoa, [https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/items/show/134381#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0 "More than 100 Years of Service: a brief history of the Santa Cruz Fire Dept."], SCPL Local History Articles collection. 

Next: [[History Pages: 43 - Petroleum in Santa Cruz, Then and Now]]

[[Category:History pages]]