River Rats

January 2026.

← Engine House No. 9 [demolished] & Station 9 | Engine House No. 10 & Station 10 | Engine House No. 11 & Station 11 →

Engine House No. 10 is Franklinton’s other historic fire station, after Engine House No. 6. Recently threatened with demolition, it has been saved and should continue to stand next to its modern replacement for years to come.

Engine House No. 10 is located at 1096 West Broad Street in the Franklinton neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by factories to the north, Broad Street and the former West Broad Carhouse to the south, Station 10 (1080 W Broad) to the east, and a 20th-century commercial building to the west.

History

With Columbus’s growth in the late 19th century, several new fire stations were built. In the 1880s, the fire department used hose reels, an early type of fire engine that was simply a cart with a spool that held a hose. Water pressure was poor further away from the center of Columbus, so the city had to resume use of steam-powered pumping engines to compensate. However, the existing fire stations were built for the smaller hose reels, meaning they could not fit the larger pumping engines. This meant that several new stations needed to be built across the city.

It’s unclear if Engine House No. 10 was one of the replacement stations intended for more modern equipment, or if it was a new construction entirely. The 1899 Baist map shows a fire station on the site with a smaller rectangular footprint, but the tower is in the same place, so it may be an incorrect representation of the existing, square fire station.

Sketch of the design for Engine Houses No. 10 and 11. (Wikimedia)

Engine House No. 10 was designed in the Romanesque Revival style. (It lacks the rusticated stone trim of its Richardsonian Romanesque predecessors and has a smoother, though still solid, appearance.) It was built as the western counterpart of Engine House No. 11 in Olde Towne East, which are both located on the National Road/US-40 and of identical design. It was built between August 1896 and February 1897 at a cost of $22,140. Columbus Landmarks states that its architect was Harris Architects (J. T. Harris?).

Engine House No. 10 first appears definitively on the 1901 Sanborn map. (I mentioned the 1899 Baist earlier, which shows a station in that location that may not be the existing building.) At that time, the surrounding neighborhood was sparsely populated but quickly filling out. This might also indicate that the station was a new construction to service the expanding Franklinton area.

Historic photo of the station with horse-drawn engines. (Columbus Neighborhoods)

Engine House No. 10 was the second fire station in Columbus to be motorized, which occurred in 1912. Unlike Engine House No. 6, which was submerged up to the second floor in the Great Flood of 1913, Engine House No. 10 only had its basement flooded. The firemen used one of the engines to pump out the water and debris.

The station was used as CFD’s training academy from 1952 to 1962, which is a little strange to me considering that more modern fire stations were being built at that time. During this mid-century era, the building caught on fire twice, once in 1971 after a gas stove caught fire and again in 1976 in the second floor’s storage room. It seems that the ornamental roof of the tower was removed at this time, though other historic features of the building remain intact.

Engine House No. 10 stayed in operation for an unusually long time compared to its contemporaries. Many of these stations closed and were replaced by less distinguished Modern designs beginning in the late 1950s. In 1988, when only three of these historic stations in total were still in service (the others were Engine House No. 14 in Hungarian Village and No. 17 in Hilltop), it was proposed that Engine House No. 10 and 17 be closed and replaced by a larger station between the two. However, residents were worried about response times, and the two were renovated instead. The fire station celebrated its centennial in 1996 and apparently still required renovations. This work was put off since the city planned to replace the station anyways, and the only major work that was done was a new system to vent diesel exhaust and an upgraded electrical system.

The building in its final years of operation, as of 2007. (Google Maps)

With the turn of the 21st century, Engine House No. 10 was showing its age at more than a century old. The original wooden windows were rotting, old lead paint and asbestos was present in the building, and the basement’s foundation walls were unstable. When Franklinton’s flood wall was completed in 2004, the city began to move forward with plans to build a replacement fire station, and yet the firemen who staffed it preferred to stay in the historic building. It was proposed for listing on the Columbus Register of Historic Properties in 2005, but these plans were shelved.

Engine House No. 10’s replacement, Station 10, opened in 2008. At the time of its closure, it was the oldest operating station in Columbus, at 111 years old. (The current oldest station is Station 19 in Clintonville, which is 94 years old and has received a major addition.) Station 10 was built immediately east of the former station, with a design influenced by the original, and a memorial between the two for firefighter Maurice Gates was built. The new station is named after Gates, who died on duty at just 21 years old in 1982. Additionally, the firefighters are nicknamed the “River Rats” due to Franklinton’s location in a floodplain.

Engine House No. 10 was designated one of Columbus’s Most Endangered Sites by Columbus Landmarks in 2023. They noted that the station remained vacant and was only used for storage, while the interior is deteriorating and the roof is leaking. They marked it as having been saved, but it remained seemingly vacant as of my visit. However, the city approved a $5.5 million renovation to turn it into a community center in December 2025, and it is supposed to reopen in October 2026. The facade will be repaired and the original wooden staircase restored, while the interior will be converted to office and community space.

Photos

A view from the southeast:

It’s honestly kind of surprising how much this building has aged with its neglect. Photos right before its closure show the windows, doors, and parapet freshly painted, but now this paint has worn away and the metal beneath is rusting:

It was also golden hour, so the photos here have a nice glow to them.

Zoomed in on the parapet and oxeye windows:

This gives a good look at the building’s Romanesque details. The central parapet, which announces the station’s name and number, is surrounded by two brick pinnacles with carved stone bases. The three rectangular windows in the middle have circular oxeye windows above. The lintels of these windows course their way across the building and spring across the vaulted windows, too. Finally, there is a decorative brickwork cornice.

The tower is mostly brick, though the windows have stone lintels, and the top-most window is vaulted:

I don’t think the current fire station achieves the same effect as the old one, despite its identical ornamentation, as it is lower and more sprawling.

I took two pictures of this facade--one more architectural without cars, and one with cars for a more artsy-fartsy effect. Which do you think is better?

Anyways, the three circular windows remain and have stained-glass designs with the station’s founding (1896) and this station’s completion (2008). It has a similar parapet, though in brick this time, and the pinnacles and vaulted windows are repeated more regularly.

Glad to see another one of these historic engine houses being preserved and reused.

Sources:

https://www.loc.gov/resource/g4084cm.g4084cm_g06656190101/?sp=3 

https://columbuslandmarks.org/2023-most-endangered-sites/

https://www.columbus.gov/Services/Public-Safety/Fire/Find-a-Fire-Station/Station-10

https://columbusneighborhoods.org/photograph/engine-house-10-1096-w-broad-st/

https://www.wosu.org/news/2021-03-15/curious-cbus-how-did-columbus-fire-stations-get-their-nicknames

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engine_House_No._10_(Columbus,_Ohio)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_stations_in_Columbus,_Ohio