The Arlington Fire Department, now a well-equipped force of nearly 400, had humble beginnings in 1880 when the town's makeshift fire defense consisted solely of borrowed buckets, as chronicled by local author and historian O.K. Carter. Back when Arlington had not yet been incorporated, and its population hovered around 200 souls, all it took for George Finger to realize the precariousness of the town's safety was a simple observation: amidst the burgeoning wooden constructions, a single spark could spell disaster without an organized response to combat the flames.
Finger mobilized the community into what can be described as the city's very first fire department, a "bucket brigade" where volunteers, upon the sound of a newly acquired fire alarm bell donated through a public collection, would rush with buckets in hand to form a human chain passing water drawn from wells to douse the fires; this was at a time when Arlington stretched no more than half a mile in either direction so the bell's peal would resound through the entire settlement, alerting everybody to the crisis at hand, the method was effective only sometimes.
Such was the gratitude and respect for Finger's proactive spirit and dedication to other civic causes that when Arlington officially became a city in 1884, he was the natural choice for its first mayor, a title he held until March 10, 1885. His actions exemplified community organization and the power of collective responsibility in an era where "if something caught fire, there was nothing organized to stop it," a situation now unimaginable with today's advanced firefighting technologies and well-trained personnel, as per the City of Arlington.
