After explaining the wonders of his invention, Latta is said to have told a visitor: “The trouble is that there is no certainty that this, or any other steam fire engine, will ever be allowed to work at a fire. You are probably not aware how bitter is the feeling of the volunteer firemen against this engine. They say it shall never throw a stream of water on a fire in this city; and I sometimes fear that I shall never live to see this grand idea brought into the service of the world. The recent riots here show what a mob can do in our city. My steps are dogged. Spies are continually on my track ... threatening me with all sorts of ills and evils unless I drop work on this engine and pronounce it a failure.
“I’ll never give up! I’ll build it, and there are enough men in this city to see that it has a fair trial; and it shall have it. When it is finished, it will be heard from at the first fire, and woe to those who stand in its way.”
As the date of the trial approached, the Cincinnati firemen were in ferment. It would never do to destroy the engine before the trial, they reasoned. On the other hand, if the trial proved successful, it would be equally risky to destroy the engine then. Consequently, a plan was formulated: make no demonstration of any kind at the trial, but—if the engine was a success—wait for its first appearance at the scene of a real blaze. Then wreck the engine and render equally useless anyone who contributed to its operation.
In this photograph taken in 1909, a steamer is pulled past old Steele High School. The occasion was a parade which honored the Wright brothers.
The trial was a great success, exceeding even Latta’s highest hopes, and now the whole city waited for the first fire on which the “Uncle Joe Ross” would be used. They did not have to wait long. A few nights after the trial, a large warehouse broke into flames in the middle of the night. Historian King describes what followed:
“Down came the great steam fire engine, four mammoth gray horses in front of it at a gallop; the smoke streaming from its stack, the fire flashing from its grates. Its ponderous wheels ground the cobblestones into powder as they struck them; and as the great monster went down the hill, people woke as out of a trance and started after it ... the time had come.”
The engine had just started to “play” water on the flames when a cry rang out: “The hose is cut.” The volunteer firemen had taken the first step in carrying out their plan.
Then occurred one of the most critical of all the melees that characterized fire-fighting of that time—a pitched battle between ordinary citizens and the irate volunteer firemen. Fortunately for the engine, for Latta and for the public in general, the citizens proved the stronger. Thoroughly whipped, the firemen gave up the struggle and the big steamer soon had drowned out the fire.
The next day Latta found himself the hero of Cincinnati. Although few were aware of it at the time, the era of the steam fire engine had finally arrived.