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Old Central Fire Station (Pittsfield, Massachusetts)

listed on the NRHP in Massachusetts

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ7083626 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Old Central Fire Station is a historic fire station at 66 Allen Street in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Built in 1895, it is the city's oldest surviving fire station, and a prominent local example of Romanesque architecture. The station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and was included in an expansion of Pittsfield's Park Square Historic District in 1991. It now houses offices.

Description and history

Pittsfield's former Central Fire Station is located roughly behind the Old Town Hall in the city's downtown Park Square area. The building is constructed primarily of brick in a Richardsonian Romanesque style. It is two stories in height, with a 60-foot (18 m) hose drying tower at one corner. It has four equipment bays, the outer ones set in large round-arch surrounds, and the inner ones set in segmented-arch openings. It was the first city station equipped for the stabling of horses on its premises.

The station's general location has been used since about 1844 as a site for fire companies.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Old Central Fire Station (Pittsfield, Massachusetts)” is listed on the NRHP in Massachusetts. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Central, Fire and Station, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1895, 1977, 1991, 1844—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Central, Fire and Station is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “listed on the NRHP in Massachusetts” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7083626. Authority coordinates are 42.449, -73.252. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1895, 1977, 1991 and 1844.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Old Central Fire Station (Pittsfield, Massachusetts)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.