The volunteer department — a century's course, told at its proven length

TO 2023 · ALL-VOLUNTEER

Until 2020 the town and the townships around it were served, in the town's own words, by an all-volunteer fire department. The New Carlisle Volunteer Fire Department covered the Town of New Carlisle, Olive Township, and Hudson Township in La Porte County from its station at 204–210 East Michigan Street at South Arch Street. Its founding year does not stand in any source — the town's own pages do not carry it — and it is banked as a named gap (GAP-NC3-FIRE-2), settlers the department's own records and Watt & Wade's 1956 town history. Its chief line is proven in part: Robert "Bob" Middlebrook served forty years "to the citizens and Town of New Carlisle as well as the Olive and Hudson Township communities," the Town Council's February 2015 honors record, "having obtained all levels of command up to and including fire chief." Josh Schweizer reported to the Council as the department's chief in February 2015 on the apparatus bid that ended in a $599,700 Pierce award, and he is the chief who carried the department through its transformation; by January 2018 the South Bend Tribune's account of the territory debate styles him the town's EMS Chief and the volunteer department's assistant chief as he helped develop the territory plan — the two records print as they stand, the chief line between Middlebrook and Schweizer being a named gap (GAP-NC3-FIRE-3), settler the department's roster record. The strain that ended the era is documented: 22 volunteers on the roll in 2018 but too few answering, call volume up 71 percent in seven years, and a July 2017 crash on Indiana 2 answered in eleven minutes from a station three miles away. No great fire stands in the town's record as it — Chapman and Howard carry none — and the great-fires checklist item prints as that tested negative, settler the Gazette files and the department's run records.

Sources:

1. Town of New Carlisle, Fire Territory page (townofnewcarlisle.in.gov/departments/fire-territory/), read whole November 2026: the all-volunteer course and the territory it became.
2. Town Council minutes, 24 Feb 2015: the Middlebrook forty-year honor; Schweizer's apparatus report; the Pierce award.
3. South Bend Tribune, 26 Jan 2018, via FireRescue1: 22 volunteers, the 71-percent call rise, the July 2017 crash, Schweizer's 2018 titles, the 3–2 council vote to begin the territory process.
4. RadioReference, St. Joseph County (IN) station list (2015 revision): "New Carlisle V.F.D. — 204-210 E. Michigan St. @ S. Arch St." At list strength.