Members of the Walnutport Diamond Fire Company have spent the last 10 days cleaning up from a fire that damaged their own quarters, a building erected in 1911.

Today, the historic bell was expected to come down.What finally becomes of the old firehouse now is a matter the insurance company and fire restoration experts are still trying to decide. It may remain a two-story building with a bell tower. It may be reduced to a one-story building. Or it may be demolished altogether."The way it sounds, they will be able to salvage the first floor and the walls of the second floor...everything else will be demolished, including the interiors," Chief John Kirchner said.Tears welled up in the eyes of more than one of the big, strong men dressed in tan bunker gear with yellow and white reflective striping.How could they not? On Nov. 2, the firefighters had been called out to battle a blaze at their beloved original fire station on Main Street in Walnutport.The men of the Diamond Volunteer Fire Company Number 1 carried out one after another of the historic building's innards and gently rested the damaged items, like the heavy cord from the bell tower's old "Hymer" alarm bell and the rectangular, stained glass light that hung over the social quarters' pool table, amid the cold, hard concrete of the building's rear garage bay.That garage, and the one in front of it, had thankfully been spared from the extensive water and smoke damage that had ruined most of the rest of the building.Before that Sunday's devastating four-alarm blaze, the building had been a grand white brick-faced, formerly red brick, two-story no one could miss along the town's main drag.It had served as a fire station since 1911, playing a pivotal role not only in the lives of the firefighters but also in the lives of their parents, grandparents and children.'My heart dropped'But all of that changed around noon that day, when people at a function in the building's larger, next-door social "bingo" hall, called to report a possible fire.The old firehouse's mid-1960s siren sounded one last time; this time to save itself."When I saw the smoke, my heart dropped," said 30-year fire company board of directors trustee David Stankovic, who said that even after his wife called to alert him the historic building might be ablaze, he initially refused to believe it."I had a moment (when I first arrived at the fire) where I had to get myself together," agreed 31-year-veteran Kirchner. "And then, of course, I had a job I needed to do ... but initially, it was choking to see that. It was sad. I grew up here."Kirchner, like so many others involved in the small town's fire department, had a long family history with the building. His father had been a firefighter and on the board of directors while his mother had been part of the ladies auxiliary.He and many others who later became heavily involved with the department, like Stankovic, Deputy Fire Chief and fire department trustee Michael Wentz, Fire Department Safety Officer Harold Greene and others used to frequently hang out at the old fire station as children and teenagers, sometimes helping to work bingo back when it was held on the second floor.Larry Merkle, who held many positions within the fire company, including having been its president for 30 years, said, "When I saw the place burning, it sort of hurt me. There were so many good memories of it, you know."Still Diamond Fire CompanyThe men said over and over again that, though the first floor of the building housed the volunteer fire company's social quarters, including its barroom, since the early 1930s, it was so much than just a watering hole."(Some) people don't understand," Wentz said. "Our office and meeting room is in here. We have our monthly meetings in here. This is still the Diamond Fire Company."Indeed, it even still housed one of the department's fir trucks. And, when it was first built, it also housed the town's borough council meetings and a two-cell "lockup" for the police department.As he watched fellow firefighters bring out newly christened "artifacts" from the building, Greene, a 28-year veteran, recalled, "I raised my kids here."He explained that the second floor, and part of the first floor, had hosted over a century's worth of community holiday and birthday parties, dances, sports banquets, showers, weddings, wakes and other social events.As far back as 1911, a carnival was held there and, throughout the decades since, its yearly membership has numbered in the hundreds.During the 1960s and early 1970s William Beck, the original owner of Becky's Drive-In in Berlinsville, used to bring holiday movies over at no cost to show during the department's free annual Christmas party for local children, which sometimes saw as many as 200-plus in attendance."That's what it was all about," he said, "Keeping the whole community happy."Wentz said the fire company recently loaned the building's second floor free-of-charge to both the local Boy Scouts to hold their meetings and to the Northern Lehigh Youth Athletic Association to practice wrestling.While some smaller town's fire departments throughout the U.S. have struggled in recent years from lack of money due to the scaling back of funds, Walnutport's volunteer fire company has flourished, mainly due to revenue pulled in from the building's social quarters and its next-door bingo hall.That money allowed the company to pay cash for the new fire station on Washington Street, occupied in 1992, and the bingo hall.Over the years, the old building had also provided income to the fire department via a silk mill leasing the second floor in the early 1900s and, later, the newly organized Walnutport State Bank leasing a portion of its first floor from 1923 to 1978.What finally becomes of the old firehouse now is a matter the insurance company and fire restoration experts are still trying to decide. It may remain a two-story building with a bell tower. It may be reduced to a one-story building. Or it may be demolished altogether.What matters, junior firefighter Bryce Greene, 16, said, "It was history, and it went away."Kirchner added, "Someone not from the area will never quite understand."