Eureka Hook and Ladder Company No. #1
Officers
EUREKA! We’ve Found It.
Eureka’s story begins in 1874, when a fire destroyed a building in the small farming community of Rockville Centre. With no local fire company and the nearest assistance miles away, residents had little means of protecting their homes and neighbors from fire.
A group of local working men decided to change that. They raised the $150 needed to build a fire rig, found a local tradesman to construct it, secured a small building on Washington Street to house it, and brought together ten men willing to take on the responsibility of protecting their community.
In 1875, they named their new organization Eureka Hook Ladder & Bucket Company. “Eureka” means “I have found it.” The company was organized before Rockville Centre was an incorporated village, before Nassau County existed, and in an era without electric service, telephones or a municipal water system. What its members did have was a commitment to protecting their neighbors’ lives and property.
More than 150 years later, that commitment continues. Generations of men and women have served Eureka and the Village of Rockville Centre through enormous changes in both the community and the fire service.
The company’s original hand-pulled equipment eventually gave way to horse-drawn apparatus and, later, modern motorized fire trucks. Today, Eureka operates a 100-foot bucket truck, a 100-foot aerial ladder truck and a technical rescue vehicle. Its members serve alongside Rockville Centre’s six other fire companies as part of a 100% volunteer department.
Eureka remains recognizable by its big trucks, big ladders and firefighters in red helmets—continuing a tradition that began with ten local men who decided their community needed a fire company and stepped forward to build one.
