The Central Station Education Initiative received an Ontario Trillium Grant of $128,500 that was used to complete restorations and upgrades to the 104 year old Central Fire Station in Welland, a designated heritage building under the Ontario Heritage Act.

Join us on November 20th for a Fire Sale at the Fire Hall. 

"On behalf of Central Station Education Initiative I would like to thank the Government of Canada and Canadian Heritage for their generous support of this project that will have historical, environmental, cultural and economic benefits to the City of Welland.

I would also like to sincerely thank our current Board members and prior Board members for all their dedication and hard work over the last five years and for their continued commitment to this project.

In addition I would like to thank our professional and volunteer firefighters past and present and all our volunteers, business partners and donors along with everyone in this community who have supported this initiative to revitalize our 100-year-old Fire Hall, one of Welland's most significant heritage sites, and preserve the irreplaceable history of Welland's and Canada's firefighters contained within it."

The Government of Canada, through a $500,000 grant, will assist in the revitalization of Welland’s Central Fire Station.

The Canadian Heritage Legacy grant, spread over three years, will help cover the costs of architects, engineers and specialists as well as costs for restorations.

A volunteer not-for-profit group, the Central Station Education Initiative (CSEI) leases the Central fire Station from the City of Welland.

The project involves renovating the designated historic site in downtown Welland. It will reopen as a multi-use community centre, which will include original fixtures and artifacts from 1920, when the classic fire station opened.

The restored fire hall will house a heritage display illustrating the building’s history, a hall of honour for first responders, rentable office space for not-for-profit cultural groups and artists and an innovative coworking space for businesses, artists and artisans, the Heritage Department said.

“The heritage display and restored fire hall will increase access to local heritage in the community,” the ministry said. “It will celebrate and raise awareness about the local history of firefighting, as well as the fire hall’s role in the community over the years.”

Canadian Heritage’s Building Communities through Arts and Heritage Legacy Fund provides funding for community-initiated capital projects intended for community use on significant anniversaries.

This grant to the Central Station Education Initiative commemorates the 100th anniversary of the Central Fire Station’s opening on December 17, 1920. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, altered a planned celebration.

It has been said that “the greenest building is the one still standing”. CSEI recognizes that the most significant artifact is the 100-year-old building itself, the only historic fire hall in the Niagara Region intact with its original interior fixtures.

The group continues to raise funds to preserve and update the three-storey firehall and convert it to a multi-use community centre with a “time capsule” heritage display on the first floor using the original fixtures and artifacts as well as other donated or loaned items.

The upper storeys, formerly offices, firefighter’s sleeping quarters and meeting/recreation room will be rented to community groups with the exception of one firefighter’s bedroom for display. The rental income will help to make the historical preservation project self-sustaining.

In addition, this project will stimulate tourism and enhance existing downtown features such as the recreational canal (former Welland Canal), farmers market, retail businesses and restaurants, City Hall, the Welland Museum, and the area’s parks and multi-use trails.

CSEI president Nora Reid expressed thanks to the Government of Canada and Canadian Heritage for their generous support of this project that will have historical, environmental, cultural and economic benefits to the City of Welland. The Legacy Grant, along with a grant of $100,000 over the next two years from the City of Welland, means that the not-for-profit group now has half of the $1.2 million needed to complete the project.

If the general public would like to help CSEI complete this project, donations can be made through our website, www.centralfirehall.ca, Facebook at www.facebook.com/wellandcentralfirehall, by cheque to Central Station Education Initiative, P.O. Box 432, Welland ON L3B 5R2 or by e-transfer to wellandcentralfirehall@gmail.com.

To get involved in transforming this beautiful building as a volunteer please leave a message on our Facebook page and a Board member will call you to let you know how you can help.

This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada.

Ce projet a été rendu possible en partie grâce au gouvernement du Canada.

A major federal funding announcement affecting the Welland Central Fire Station will be made Wednesday, May 19, 2021.

The Central Station Education Initiative, which leases the century-old heritage-designated fire hall from the City of Welland, is renovating and upgrading the three-storey station as a community service centre.

For more than three years, CSEI has fundraised locally, provincially and nationally promoting the preservation project despite the challenges of pandemic restrictions. Wednesday’s announcement is expected to give it a big boost.

The renewed station will include a firefighting heritage display on the ground-floor engine room. It will use physical features and artifacts left in the building when the city closed the unique firehall in the early 2000s.

Among heritage items are a fire truck, an early city-wide fire alarm system, dispatch room, fire poles, hose-drying tower, tower clock, painted city wall map   and other related items.

The display will highlight local firefighting through the 20^th Century, honour those involved in protecting the city and stress current fire safety methods.

The second floor has lockers, administration offices and sleeping quarters, while a third-storey is large recreation and meeting room. CSEI will rent them to community groups to help sustain the upgraded building.

For almost 90 years full-time and volunteer firefighters slid down two brass fire poles, scrambled along oak stairs, jumped onto trucks and sped out of Central Fire Station.

They fought fires large and small in houses, businesses, schools, apartment buildings, at factories and on farms. They rescued people from buildings, cars, canals, rivers and ponds. They felt the heartbreak of losses as well as the satisfaction of success.

Many of the Welland fires are legendary.

They include: 

 the East Main Street business block in 1961 which held the Olympia Restaurant, a shoe store and Welland Wines outlet;

 the Morwood Hardware store on West Main Street in 1968;

  Beaver Lumber Company on East Main Street;

 Jerry’s Army Surplus Store in 1977; 

 Howard Johnson fire on Burgar Street in 1982; 

 the Turnbull House fire on River Road;

 Sts. Peter and Paul Church fire on Beatrice Street in 1996;

  and Atlas Hotel in 2000.

One fire will always stand out as an oddity, a flash fire in the Central Fire Station hose tower on a Friday afternoon in April 27, 1962. 

The Deputy Fire Chief Ed Wilson and firefighter Stan Gifford received burns and two firefighters scrambled out second floor windows onto ladders. The fire trucks had to be pushed from the building to protect them.

Today, you can still see the effects of the fire in the different colour of bricks around the current clock. The fire destroyed the electric clock donated to the hall when it was built in 1920. It was eventually replaced by a fire hall clock from Preston, Ont.

For Welland, it wasn’t the first firehall blaze. In the 1880s, the original downtown firehall, on Cross Street beside the courthouse, went up in flames.