Engine 58 was organized in 1916 at Byberry and Worthington Roads in the far northeast section of the city. The company was assigned a 1916 Ahrens-Fox 900 GPM pumper and a 1915 Ahrens-Fox hose and chemical wagon. The hose and chemical wagon were reassigned to Engine 59 in 1917. Throughout the 102 year history of Engine 58, the company has only been assigned fourteen pieces of apparatus. Of those fourteen, only five were assigned to them as brand new.
On March 18, 1986 Engine 58 moved to a new station at 812 Hendrix Street. The company continues to operate at that location.
In 1961, driving around Northeast Philadelphia with our Hallicrafters tuneable fire radio, it was always hard to receive the fire frequency being transmitted from the main tower atop City Hall about 12 miles away. It was 2:19pm on a very foggy February 18th, when we could just barely hear Box 4286 at Byberry & Townsend Rds. being transmitted for a barn fire. So, we headed to the location where the barn was on the S.W. corner of Byberry & Thornton Rds. Being on the grounds of the Byberry State Hospital Farm, one of the last working farms in that area, the fog was very, very dense making it almost impossible to differentiate the smoke coming from the 2 story frame barn from the dense fog. We could barely make out Engine 58’s, 1954 Hahn front-mounted, 500 gpm pumper-hose wagon on the driveway leading to the barn. Shortly after we arrived the 2nd alarm was transmitted at 2:39pm. Most likely the 2nd alarm was requested because of long hose lays necessitated by the few and far between hydrants in the area. It sure didn’t look like a 2 alarm fire not being able to see much; and with poor radio reception, we didn’t stay very long.