A Brief History
The history surrounding the Potato Patch fire garage dates back to at least 1985 when the concept of additional fire protection in the community appeared in a local newspaper in Prescott. In the article, the idea of having a fire unit from the Walker Fire Department staged in a garage somewhere in Potato Patch was proposed to the Potato Patch Owners Association (now Potato Patch Owners Corporation). The idea proffered was that the community and its members would fund construction of the garage located somewhere within the community and in turn, Walker Fire would provide a unit that could respond either in a fire or medical emergency, not only for Potato Patch but in the surrounding area as well. Initially, there was considerable support for the idea but somehow the concept was never adopted formally so that funding could be acquired and construction could begin and was eventually disregarded. Several other attempts to resurrect the project were tried in the years that followed but none ever took hold and were eventually dropped.
Fast forward to 2012 when the idea surfaced once again in earnest. The Association’s Board of Directors were once again approached by representatives of the Walker Fire Department in May of that year and made essentially the same offer to our community in exchange for Potato Patch funding and constructing a heated garage to store a fire unit within the confines of the Potato Patch community again with the goal of increased fire protection and a faster response time to any emergency.
Unfortunately, the Board of Directors were met with some resistance from a few members of the community that resulted in protracted litigation being conducted that lasted until late in 2018 when the suit was dropped. Once the negotiations of the settlement were finalized and recorded, the Board was free to proceed with the project. The community was poled as to whether or not it approved of the project proceeding and that if necessary, would it be willing to incur a special assessment in order to fund construction. Over 76% of the members who responded voted to approve the project and agreed to a special assessment, should it be required. We were on our way!
The special assessment was imposed, the funds were collected, and we were ready to begin our search for a company to construct the garage. We spoke with three local vendors as we wanted to stay close to home if at all possible, and narrowed our search to the company that constructed the garage on Big Bug Mesa a few years prior. After several months of designing the garage, floodplain considerations, permitting, material gathering, etc., the garage finally began to take shape. Construction began in 2019 with the foundation being poured in approximately April of that year. We experienced several delays in the process, not the least of which was the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic but the garage was essentially completed in February of 2020 with the fine tuning completed in May.
Since the garage was built and the fire unit installed, there have been many calls that the unit has responded to, including several fires. Having the garage and fire unit has saved countless acres and quite possibly several lives by having it in such close proximity to our community and as always, we cannot thank our first responders enough for their dedication to everyone’s safety and wellbeing!
