"It was 1948 when Grahamsville came in to talk about fire protection for this area, Grahamsville came up to the old Allison's Store to ask if we wanted them to cover this area.  We asked if they were thinking about putting a truck up here for us and  they said they couldn't afford that, so we decided to start our own department.  " That was the start of the Neversink Fire Department." 

- Archie Dean, past chief and charter member

"That same year," Archie said, "we got an old army truck from Short's Dairy in Liberty, the members converted it into our first fire truck.  Our first year's budget was $1,400, a far cry from today's budgets for fire services."

Archie said that the first firehouse, now the community hall, was built from timber that came out of the valley where the Neversink Reservoir now stands.  The department's first real fire truck was a '54 International pumper and was put into service the same year as the new firehouse.  That was also the year that the Neversink Fire Department instituted our ambulance squad, the second in the county.

According to past chief and past president Herb Lepke when the department began, there was nothing to speak of in Neversink.

"Most of the people who moved to the area came from the valley when the city flooded it to build the reservoir.  The first big fire we responded to was the Healy Warehouse in the valley.  It was a storehouse for all sorts of machinery from the excavation of the reservoir and burned for hours.  The more water we poured onto it, the worse it became"

Today the Neversink FD covers an area of approximately 50 square miles and protects about 1,000 people.  That number quadruples in the summer months from tourism.

Click Here for History on The Town of Neversink

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