Legendary bell to be added to new NB fire hall

By Barbara Brown
The North Branch Fire Department will celebrate the completion of its new fire hall on County Road 30 starting at 10 a.m. on Saturday.
During the ceremony, the building will be blessed and an open house will be held.
One interesting addition to the fire hall is the installation of the oldest fire bell in North Branch, owned by the family of L.M. Hammerstrom, one of the cityís first fire chiefs.
Hammerstrom became a business legend in his own right and continued his public service through sheriffís duties, water and sewer management and volunteer fire fighting for many years.
Included here is a brief synopsis of his contributions to North Branch submitted by Phyllis Lindberg, his daughter.
L.M. (Matt) Hammerstrom (April 23, 1878 to Nov. 28, 1962) came to North Branch from a farm in Harris in about 1905 or 1906. He was a native of Kragers, Norway.
In the very early years here he was a Standard Oil agent using horse drawn equipment. He was in business in town for many years.
He had grocery stores, one was in the building where Jimmyís Pizza now stands. Another store was where the movie theater is now and it had living quarters upstairs. The hotel next door burned while the family was out of town.
Hammerstrom also had two cafews. One was in the building where the Heartís Desire store is (in the 1920s) and the other was in the building that later became the Cozy Cafe, which is now included in the Caryl and Co. building.
Hammerstrom was deputy sheriff for several years. We think that may be the reason he resigned from his duties as Fire Chief in 1918 after having been chief from 1916.
He then served as fire chief from 1919 to 1927.
We remember watching the Norh Branch Mercantile fire from a southern window in our home on the cormer of Cedar Street and Sixth Avenue in 1930 and his coming home with frozen clothes after the fire.
This indicates that he was still active as a fireman at that time.
He also went with other volunteers as a young man to fight the Hinckley fire.
After his business years, Hammerstrom was night marshall in the late 1930s and into the 1940s for the village. Each night he walked the beat checking that all the businesses were safe throughout the night.
He was in charge of the water department, reading the meters and keeping the water supply flowing by managing the pumphouse located down by the creek on the north end of town.
This was below what is now Pedersonís Trailer Court.
He also was the person who managed the cleaning of the sewers in the village for many years.
It was in the late 1930s or early 1940s that he mounted the fire bell in the yard along with other arrangements of stone and rockes including the foundations of two of the houses he built within his part of the block of Cedar and Sixth.

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