Vintage Hydrant Photographs
Egyptian water courier fills a skin
at a public hydrant, ca. 1900s?
Photographer unknown.

Click to See Entire Photo


Old photographs are a great resource for tracking the distribution and thus the history of the fire hydrant. Old photos are sometimes the only evidence of a partictular hydrant's existance. Viewing early hydrants in their original context offers an intriguing look into the past.

We would like to see your old hydrant photos for possible inclusion on this page. Sources can include old postcards, family heirloom photos, etc. If you have an old photograph with a hydrant clearly in view, please E-mail Us.

Submission notes: If you are willing to scan your submission, as a starting point, we suggest a 200dpi scan, enlarged 2X, and saved as a "High Quality" jpeg file. Use the 'grayscale' setting for black and white photographs.


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Photos from Various Sources

  • Man & Hydrant, San Francisco Earthquake, 1906
  • Flip Lid Style Hydrant Edgar Allen Poe Cottage, Fordham, NY, 1907.
  • Garratt Flip Lid Style Hydrant Santa Cruz, CA late 1800s
  • Flip Lid Style Hydrant Vigilant Fire Company, Hacketstown, NJ circa 1920
  • Ludlow List 75 Hydrant Wheeling West Virginia Flood, circa 1907
  • Seattle Washington collection of 4 photos, ca. 1900.
  • Colorized Stereoview, flip lid hydrant, NYC ca. 1925 (cropped)
  • Dapper southern gentleman with R.D. Wood hydrant ca. 1900
  • Chapman hydrant, Waterville, Maine ca. 1907

  • New Photos from Barry Zimmerman's postcard collection


    From the History of the American West, 1860-1920: Photographs from the Collection of the Denver Public Library

  • San Francisco Street Scene - Greenberg Model 74 Hydrant ca. 1903
  • Wolcott Private School, Denver - Holly Hydrant ca. 1900s
  • Boulevard Public School, Denver - Holly Hydrant ca. 1910
  • Canon City, Colorado - Northeast corner of 3rd and Main Streets ca. 1880
  • Georgetown, Colorado, Public School - Beaumont Hydrant ca. 1892
  • Golden, Colorado - Holly Hydrant ca. 1881

  • From the Willard Library, Battle Creek, Michigan

  • R.D. Wood Mathews model, ca. 1917

  • From the Picture Australia - National Library of Canberra

  • Malvern Auxiliary Fire Service, Australia ca. 1942


  • Early Color Paintings of Hydrants


  • N. Currier image ca. 1858, New York City
  • McLaughlin Brothers image ca. 1901, New York City


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