Early Sunday morning, March 30, 1947, with the temperature in the upper 20’s with 25-30 mph winds and heavy snowfall, Columbus firefighters were on the scene of a 3-alarm blaze at the Fruehauf trailer facility on Fletcher Street. Less than 24 hours later, they fought a 4-alarm fire at the Ohio Furniture Co. on E. Main Street. Max Haverman, a long-time fire buff was at both incidents. Following that second major fire, he approached (acting) Fire Chief Clarence Ogburn with the idea that the firefighters could really use some relief from the elements. He mentioned that there were other groups that helped the firefighters, the closest of which was Box 21 in Dayton.  Box 21 had been formed in 1935 and was greatly appreciated by the Dayton firefighters. Max, a pharmacist with the Wendt-Bristol Co. worked just a block away from Fire Station #3 (at S. 3rd. St. & Capital Alley) and was friends with most of the firefighters at the downtown stations.

 

Chief Ogburn was receptive of the idea and gave Max the go-ahead to come up with a plan.  Less than three months later, on Tuesday, June 24, Max and 14 other interested people met at Columbus Fire Station #4 (then located at Russell & Hamlet Streets) for the first time and decided to form up as a group. The initial intent was to “support Columbus Fire and Columbus Police in every way possible”. They named it Box 15 – “Box”, referring to the (then) common fire alarm boxes located on nearly every street corner of the city, and “15” referring to the number of people in the initial group.  Mostly businessmen, they ranged from Max, the pharmacist, to Fred Dunn, the Auditor for Franklin County, William Feil, a funeral director and several others.

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That was then; now we've grown into Box 15 a little over 7 decades later...