The first hotel built at Goose Rocks Beach in 1871 was the Goose Rocks House at the east end of the beach overlooking Beaver Pond Creek. When it burned on August 28, 1910, the Goose Rocks Beach Community had no way to fight the fire.

The Beachwood Improvement Society built the first “Beachwood Firehouse” in 1911 on land donated to the community by the Dow & Fearing families on Edgewood. It was the only firehouse in the area when Goose Rocks was hit by the disastrous 1947 fire. The Edgewood firehouse has since been converted into a private home.

According to an article in the Biddeford Saco Journal on October 8, 1955,

“An auxiliary has been formed by the wives of the Goose Rocks Beach firemen, and the first meeting was held Tuesday evening, with 12 members present. Officers were elected with Mrs. Vivian Fessenden, president; vice president, Mrs. Barbara Willey, and secretary and treasurer, Mrs. Mary Surrett. Meetings will be held on the first Tuesday of every month, the next one to be November 8. Members attending the last meeting and the next meeting will be listed as charter members. Business to come up at the next meeting will be to vote on a central location for children and other people to stay in case of emergency.

Those attending were Mrs. Vivian Fessenden, Mrs. Lorraine Burnham, Mrs. Helen Fessenden, Mrs. Lady Caly, Mrs. Helen McRae, Mrs. Genthner, Mrs. Barbara Willey, Mrs. Mary Surrett, Mrs. McLaughlin, Mrs. Alice Lyndale, Mrs. Claude Lucy and Mrs. Boissonneault. ”

The GRB Fire Sirens were instrumental in raising funds for firefighting equipment. They were photographed practicing their own firefighting skills in 1960. Six years later they raised funds for building a new Firehouse on Wildwood Ave.

Many thanks to the late Freeland K. Smith. He was volunteering to digitize oral history cassettes at the Kennebunkport Historical Society in 2017 when he offered to give me a tour of the current Goose Rocks Beach Fire House, built in 1991 on Rte 9. I was enthralled by the 1960 photo collage of the Fire Sirens hanging at the station.