FORMER Fire Station - Coppell, TX
N 32° 57.310 W 097° 00.394
14S E 686327 N 3648080
Now home to Mantis Innovation, Coppell's first fire station is at 616 S Coppell Rd.
Waymark Code: WM16EYT
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 07/17/2022
Views: 0
A 2014 historical marker placed by the Coppell Historical Society provides some background.
This building was Coppell's first fire station, built by J.T. Maynard in 1958. A siren beside it would sound when someone called the department's phone number. Anyone around at the time would hurry to answer the phone while the town's volunteer fire department members assembled. The building's one bay was later expanded to two, then to three.
The building next door, built in late 1959 also by Maynard, was Coppell's first city hall. It was originally one big meeting room. When the town hired its first city secretary, Ernest Gentry, the City Council started meeting in the school cafeteria, and Gentry and R.M. Johnson, Coppell's first mayor, shared offices in the building. It was later expanded by volunteers to include two jail cells and became the home of the Coppell Police Department.
In 1972, a third building was added behind the other two that served as the city permit office and as the office of George Campbell, Coppell's first city manager.
In 2012, the property was purchased and renovated to house the offices of Amcat Adjusting Services.
While the renovations produced a modern brick façade, one can still make out the bays, replaced by four-over-four windows with opaque tiled glass windows above, shaded by metal awnings with decorative lights. A 2007 Street View on Google Maps shows that there was a senior center here at the time, indicating that the fire station had since been relocated.