Ladder 12 / Engine 8
Ladder 12 of the Detroit Fire Department opened in 1908 at Lafayette and 10th. Up until 1922 the department still used horse-drawn fire engines, the vestiges of which can be found in horse stables located behind the quarters and other small ways. In 1963 Ladder 12 received a new truck, described in a Detroit Free Press article as a "gleaming, glistening, aluminum - laddered prodigy complete with oxygen masks and all," that was parked "between depressions in the floor carved by the hooves of the fire horses tethered there many years ago."
Ladder 12 closed as part of a city-wide reduction of fire companies in 1982. Engine 8, which had been located at a nearby station was moved to Ladder 12’s quarters and remained there until it too closed in 2012. The city put the station up for sale and sold to a private citizen who gutted the building and converted it into a residence in 2016.
