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History of the Whitefield Volunteer Fire Department

The Whitefield Volunteer Fire Department is made up of men and women who want to serve their community to the fullest extent.  Today’s men and women are just part of the long history of the Whitefield Volunteer Fire Department.  The Whitefield Volunteer Fire Department strives to serve its community with the utmost dedication.

In 1969, several Whitefield community members started turning the wheels on getting everything going for a volunteer fire department.  The very first community meeting was held at Whitefield Baptist Church with Anderson County Fire Marshal James Hall and Hugh Durham the community spokesmen.  At that meeting, community members elected a group of honest and dedicated people who loved their community to the board of directors.  After that, all subsequent meetings were held at George Wilson’s Service Station.  Also at that time, Anderson County placed an order for a new fire truck to serve the new Whitefield Fire District.  A location then had to be found in order to house the new fire department.  Once again a Whitefield community member stepped up and donated a one-acre site located on the McConnell Estate, donated by Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Evans.  

Sometime after the beginning of a great future for the safety and protection of the Whitefield community, the Ladies Auxiliary was established in order to help with fundraisers.  The Ladies Auxiliary members played a major role in getting the fire department established.  They helped raise the money to pay the station’s loan off, helped raise funds for a tanker truck to shuttle water, and a grass truck to go off-road and other places that the bigger trucks couldn’t go.  The very first fundraiser was a hotdog sale, held at H.I. Taylor’s Auction.  All the members of the fire department came together and had chicken and hot dog supper sales every month for six years until the fire department had paid off the loan from the bank. 

Amongst all of this hard work the firemen had to begin training in order to serve their community.  Training took about three months to complete.  Upon completion, the firemen established a group of men to become the officers of the fire department.  Harrison Ellison was elected Chief in 1971 when the Whitefield Volunteer Fire Department went into full service.  Harrison served as Fire Chief for sixteen years; then in 1987 Harrison resigned and Don Ford took over as Chief, followed by Jimmy Ellison who served for 18 years. 

The Whitefield Volunteer Fire Department continues to grow, as we have expanded to six trucks, and added two extra bays in order to house the extra trucks that serve the community.  The Whitefield Fire Department is always looking for community members who are willing to go that extra mile in order to serve their community.  If interested, check out the forms page of our website and drop the completed application off by our station at 7:00 PM on the 1st or 3rd Tuesday of each month.