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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — On June 4, 1870, the Friendship Firehouse on South Alfred Street was reported to be in structurally unsound condition, forcing the removal of all fire equipment from the building. It had been constructed just 15 years earlier.
The cause was the firehouse's most distinctive feature: a massive steeple atop the building that was repeatedly battered by high winds. The wind torqued the small structure below it, allowing rainwater to penetrate the roof and framing. Years of deferred maintenance during the Civil War period — when Alexandria was under Union occupation and many local institutions struggled to function — compounded the damage.
The solution was to replace the tall steeple with a lower cupola. The repair was part of a substantial 1871 remodel of the building, though twisting and weather infiltration would continue to plague the structure for decades. The City of Alexandria fully restored the building in 1992, and the cupola was strengthened again in 2010 — 140 years after the original problem was identified.
The Friendship Fire Company itself was established in 1774, as the first volunteer fire company in Alexandria. The company celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2024 — making it older than the United States itself. In a town of mostly wooden buildings warmed and lit by open flames, fire was a constant danger, and the Friendship was joined by the Sun, Relief, Hydraulion and other local volunteer companies that responded to enormous blazes in 1827, 1855, 1871 and 1922.
The current South Alfred Street firehouse, built in 1855, replaced an earlier building that had burned down that same year. Volunteer firefighting in Alexandria gave way to a paid city Fire Department in 1866 as the community emerged from the disruption of the Civil War — but the Friendship building's legacy continued.
Today the firehouse operates as the Friendship Firehouse Museum, part of the Office of Historic Alexandria. Its collection includes the Rodgers Suction Engine (1851) and the elaborately decorated Prettyman Hose Carriage (1858) — a midnight-blue ornate apparatus made by local craftsman Robert F. Prettyman, with gilded decorative shields, red wheels, and brass bells. The Friendship Veterans Fire Engine Association, the modern descendant of the original 1774 company, hosts an annual Friendship Firehouse Festival on the first Saturday in August at the firehouse on the 100 block of South Alfred Street.
Information via the Office of Historic Alexandria's "This Day in History," the Friendship Firehouse Museum, and the Friendship Firehouse Festival pages.
