One night back in 1867, almost 100 years earlier, the town was burned to the ground with many residences going up in flames and coming back down in ashes. The loyal and exerted efforts to build the town back to as near as could be expected found only less than 29 years later the same thing happening again. The second time, most all of the business section was destroyed again by flames.

This concerted effort to build back and survive the hardships that so many of the natives suffered some 30 or 40 years earlier was a portion of history that was preparing the natives of the Cherokee village to bounce back stronger than ever with the ambition to correct what had happened.

Another disaster left the town in ruins as if a bomb had exploded and turned the town into a huge pile of waste. A tornado hit the town in April of 1918.

One more disaster followed in 1947, the row of buildings that were to the north of where the hardware store now is located, went up in flames with no equipment to fight the fire. That section of town went up in flames leaving the people with nothing to do but stand back and watch it go up in flames.

During the early 1960's, I found myself serving on the city council and then becoming mayor during that period.

One night at a City Council meeting being held at the Community Building (which is where most City Council meetings were held), a nice new 1962 fire truck painted red was parked up close to the front of the Community Building. The man driving the fire truck was the manufacturer and his place of business was in Wichita Falls. He parked the beautiful truck near the front door. As he entered the building, we had already discovered that this welcomed piece of equipment was a desired necessity and was 100 years late in arriving in Aubrey.

Serving on the City Council at this time was O.D. Milton, Howard Irick, Gilbert Tribble, Homer Pulliam, and Bill Loader It required very little sales pitch to convince the council that this was what we needed, but the price of $6,000 was out of our little town’s budget range. We were such a small town at this time, that we depended on the county commissioners to blade the dirt road streets.

After much discussion between the council and with Juanita Irick, the City Secretary, we determined that there was $3,500 in the water and sewer account. The temptation of breaking the lender’s rules to buy this fire truck was more than the council could resist, and soon a decision was made to use the $3,500 from the water and sewer account and make a down payment on the truck. The first fire truck owned by the City of Aubrey was a genuine reality.

The heartbreaking news came a few months later when the lending agency curtly informed us that we should not have taken the money from the water account. The news traveled quickly throughout town that we had committed a no no, and that we were required to place the funds back into the water and sewer account, this was a time when we were all poor folks struggling to provide for our families.

After the news of the reprimand, the firemen’s wives began raising funds. They had chili suppers and dinners along with some entertaining plays and soon the money began coming in to replace the wrongful borrowing of funds.

On one of these occasions the firemen performed the play of a womanless wedding. This was a well-advertised fundraiser and created a full house at the community building. But money was the key word and the vice president, Mrs. O.D. Milton of the ladies organization raised $1,600, and plans were in the making for another round of fund raising.

The lending agency still was not satisfied and asked me as the mayor to meet in the Republic Bank in Dallas to discuss with the attorneys about our illegal use of the water funds.

This hassle with the lending agency went on another few months when the notion occurred to us that what if the entire town burned down again, how would we reimburse the lender of the debt if we didn’t have fire equipment to help save the town.

The next time I had to appear at the lawyers’ office at the bank, I immediately began to compile a history of how the town had been destroyed by fire so many different times in the past, and that there was definitely a pattern of destruction over the past 100 years. I explained that with this pattern over the past 100 years the need for fire fighting equipment was so much more necessary now than ever before in the history of the town.

The history of our town came in as a valuable asset when defending the council’s actions in purchasing the fire truck. By the time the meeting was over the lenders were commending us on our efforts to protect their investment in our town.

It was during this same year that Krugerville became our neighbor to the south and the newly developing town needed fire protection, thus a larger effort from both communities supported our need for the fire equipment. Cross Roads was also dependent on our local volunteer fire department.

Five years later, Denton County under Judge Baldridge ordered the small towns to fight their own fires by establishing their own fire departments.

From memory I can recall that Bo Thompson and his son James, Howard Irick, Bill Reding, Homer Pulliam, W.J. Bill Loader, Sr., Kenneth Wilson, O.D. Milton, E.F.Cranmore, J.C. Booter Cross, Leslie Tribble, John Brumley and Bud Looper were volunteer firemen who organized the fire department. There are at least seven others that I can’t recall at this time.

On another note, Jimmie Hardin reminded me of the name of one of the ladies in the Centennial clothing in a picture published about two weeks ago. She says that the third lady from Sudie Milton is Katie Jones. I am pleased that she brought this to my attention. Thank you Jimmie.

Information from Old Newspaper Clippings: