Then and Now: Holly St. Fire Station

Nashville Fire Department station 14 on Holly St. celebrated its 100th anniversary in Oct. 2014. Station 14 went into service Oct. 1, 1914 as the J.B. Richardson Engine Company No. 14, named after a prominent local businessman. Located at 1600 Holly St., it was the first station built in Nashville designed solely for motorized vehicles and its firefighters have protected the residents of Lockeland Springs ever since.

From the 1996, 18th Annual Lockeland Springs Christmas Tour program:
In 1913, when the City of Nashville announced plans to build two new firehalls in outlying suburbs, neighbors organized the Lockeland Improvement League and petitioned to get one built in their neighborhood.

The firehall, designed in the Colonial Revival style by James Yeaman, Nashville’s first city architect, was the first built specifically for motorized vehicles and the first designed to blend into a resident
ial neighborhood. It opened with formal ceremonies on October 1, 1914, as the:
J.B. Richardson
Engine Company No. 14

Richardson was a prominent businessman who had bought the Lockeland Mansion as his country estate and when he died in 1913, the City of Nashville named the Station in his honor.

A. A. Rozetta was Chief of Fire Department when Station 14 opened and today it’s the City of Nashville’s oldest active Fire Station.