On Dec. 14 the Foxworth Volunteer Fire Department held its annual Christmas party and honored one of its own.
D.L. Wesley, 91, now a resident of The Myrtles, was honored as a charter member. Wesley created the first department outside the city in Marion County.
Fire chief Mickey Graham presented Wesley with a plaque for all of the years of dedication to the fire department.
“There was no county anywhere around this county with a fire department,” Wesley said, telling of the creation 50 years ago.
He said a large group of people came together and they decided to start one. At first he said they did not have anything. Three of the people in the meeting went and brought a fire truck from a junk yard in Slidell, La., for $50 and put it in Wesley’s shop. When the mechanics were not working for Wesley, they were working on the truck, he said.
He said the day after the truck was running, the train that goes back and forth from New Orleans pulled across the road and stopped on the railroad track.
“Some of the railroad people got into the caboose, struck a fusehead and threw it in a box and set it on fire. They wanted a new caboose,” he said.
After extinguishing the fire, Wesley said he sent the railroad a bill for $100 and that was the first $100 the fire department made.
Wesley used to work for the Mississippi Highway Patrol and made a lot of friends. From that he was able to go to Moss Point where he got some old equipment, Ocean Springs gave him a ladder and Biloxi a nozzle. He came back to Foxworth with all of that equipment and old worn-out boots and turn-out gear and worn-out firehose they had stored in a junkyard.
“That is how we got started,” he said.
Wesley spoke of the ways they trained and how the department would consistently year after year win in fire departments rodeos.
