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Two years of dreams, hard work and community support were celebrated with the dedication of a bronze statue, The Fireman, in Bartow Friday afternoon.

More importantly, it was the celebration of more than a century of dedication by volunteers who helped protect their community.

With two blocks of North Broadway closed to traffic, close to 200 people gathered in front of the statue erected at the Bartow fire station.

“When you drive by and see this beautiful statue,” Mayor Pat Huff told those at the dedication ceremony, “remember not only the volunteers of the present day, but remember those who went before.”

In giving the invocation, Rev. Rob Patrick recognized “the long years of commitment and service” from those who were “quick and ready to help.”

Retired volunteer firefighter Billy Simpson explained the statue committee decided the statue would honor volunteers back to 1913, when the department was officially organized. Bartow had volunteer firefighters dating back to 1881, but in 1913 the department was created, in part because the lack of a fire department made house insurance rates high in Bartow.

Frank B. “Bubba” Smith, a member of the statue committee, said the work of art was “an act of love.” Although there were those who said it couldn’t be done, with community business and resident donations, the committee raised more than the $65,000 needed to purchase the statue and landscaping. The city supplied the base. Planning for the monument began in 2009 when Bartow Volunteer Fire Department officially stepped down as it became harder to meet the more stringent training requirements required by the state.

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam of Bartow, whose grandfather Dudley Putnam was a BVFD member, was keynote speaker.

“I am completely unworthy to be the person to dedicate this statue, not having been a part of the volunteer firemen,” Putnam said, “but it is so special to see so many Bartowans who appreciate the men who gave so much to our community and for us to appreciate our history. And that’s just one of a thousand things that makes Bartow so special, isn’t it?

“It really is a monument for the ages that represents so much.”

Putnam joked that, “I know just enough about the volunteer firemen to know that regardless of what I say here it won’t be nearly as good as the stories that are going to take place in this reception to follow.”

Some longtime Bartow names are associated with the volunteers, like the Gibson brothers and Mr. Jackson (Ben, Sr.), Putnam recalled. “They say that the fire truck always came out of the old station the same direction, it turned south (on Broadway), and then turned back east (onto Main Street) and in the period of time that it would travel this half block and that full block and then make that left-hand turn, Mr. Jackson would have already served three customers, washed his hands, combed his hair and still be the first guy on the corner to get on the truck.”

Putnam drew a roar of laughter from the crowd when he said, “You hear all the stories about the firemen’s ball which was the only thing in town more rowdy than the Kiwanis ladies’ night.”

Several years ago the chief gave Putnam a copy of the minutes from one of the BVFD meetings in the early ’60s, when a unanimous motion was passed to have someone “please inform Dudley Putnam to stop bringing his dog to the fires.”

Another personal story he shared “to this day makes the hair stand up on my arm and it did even as a little kid.” His father vividly recalls when he was about 5, jumping on his father’s lap in the old LaFrance fire engine and riding through town with every church bell in town and all the sirens going off to celebrate the end of World War II.

The good times and fun the volunteer firefighters had was more than balanced by their heroic acts. “You think about the lives and the property that were protected for a hundred years by a group of men who did it for a dollar a year because they wanted to and because they loved it and because it was important.

“And that’s really the fiber of what makes a community, that civic capital ... we’re all in this big neighborhood together, committed to finding ways to make our community a better place, to take care of the people that need taking care of, to inspire the young people to do better than what we did and to give back.

“That’s really the spirit of volunteerism that was embodied in the Bartow volunteer firemen.”