Calamity Jane, an all-purpose rescue truck, arrived in Cecil County late in 1953. This special emergency vehicle was available for use in Cecil, Harford, and Kent counties. The truck had nearly 100 different types of extraction equipment, every imaginable tool, mechanical device, and article needed when lives and property were endangered.
It was one of six heavy rescue vehicles that Maryland Civil Defense stationed in various parts of the state. The truck, a bright and shiny Reo with the familiar red-and-blue CD symbols on it, was under the command of rescue squad Captain W. Andrew Seth of Civil Defense. John J. Ward, Jr. the chief of the agency said that while the truck was primarily here to “protect the community in the event of an air attack by a hostile power, it could be used for any disaster which might occur.”
It had been manufactured by the Reo Motor Company of Lansing, MI. It was capable of carrying a crew of eight and traveling at a speed of about 55 miles per hour. The manufacturer called it a “combination Red Cross ambulance, fire truck, and utility company trouble-shooter.”
A major explosion rocked Chestertown in 1954 when the Kent Manufacturing Company’s fireworks plant exploded. The charred five acres of plant property, leveled buildings, and critically injured workers called for massive emergency response from throughout the region, and calamity Jane, Cecil’s heavy rescue vehicle, rushed to the scene to provide aid.
Calamity Jane, a Civil Defense Rescue Truck arrived in Cecil County in 1953. It was one of six CD vehicles stationed around the state. Source: Cecil Whig, Dec. 3, 1953
When an explosion charred five acres of the Kent Manufacturing Company Fireworks plant, the CD rescue truck responded. John Farrell, John C. Cooke, and Andrew Seth were the crew on the truck. Source: Cecil Democrat, July 22, 1954.
The county decided it needed a bomb shelter during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cecil Democrat, Oct. 24, 1962
The end of October is normally a scary time in Cecil County as Halloween rolls around. But an actual nightmare on the eve of the trick-or-treat season in 1962 caused people to shy away from ghosts and goblins. Facing a dreadful reality, the world standing on the edge of a nuclear war, people decided they had enough frightening antics and scary tales, although the situation eased by the time the last two days of the month arrived.
George Prettyman, a columnist for the Cecil Democrat, wrote about those jittery days. “Almost everything has become of scant importance since the president spoke on October 22 on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Several times during the past few years it has seemed that we have been on the brink of war. But all other crises pale in the light of the present one, for we are indeed dangerously – very dangerously – close to hostilities. Every moment we remain disengaged from open warfare gives us a little more hope that the matter can be settled short of all-out, worldwide war.” With a chill of that type in the papers, on television, and in the air, nervous people weren’t in the mood for the mysterious and spooky season or any other dark jolts.
It was the quietest in years, “virtually free from malicious mischief and vandalism,” Elkton Chief Thomas N. McIntire, Jr. reported. Looking to bolster his patrols, given the normal antics, the county seat’s top cop called out the Civil Defense Auxiliary Police. Already on high alert because of international tensions, it was easy for the chief of the CD force, Norton Singman, to mobilize his resources. He detailed 27 men to take up positions throughout town for two days, and between the regular officers and the CD auxiliary the entire community was “under surveillance.”
Elkton’s Annual Halloween Parade
Elkton’s annual Halloween parade, a popular event, was headed by Harry Cleaves in 1962. It was a “huge success,” papers reported, although the floats and paraders seemed to be far fewer in number.
Sheriff Edgar Startt also reported that mischief night passed quietly in rural Cecil. He put all four full-time deputies on patrol and had six extra men supplement the regular force.
Rising Sun Managed to Pull Off Its Traditional Trick
Despite the heightened presence of lawmen and the frightening specter of mass destruction, pranksters in Rising Sun managed to pull off their traditional trick. After a group prowled around the countryside and found a convenient outhouse, they promptly dragged it to the center of the town square. There it stood under cover of a chilled October darkness. Police were looking for the owner of the privy.
Jittery residents weren’t looking for the creepy and kooky in 1962.
County Commissioners meet with state and federal officials to go over procedures for federal assistance in construction a bomb proof building to house Civil Defense and county records. Commissioners Howard Tome & Davie Racine attended the meeting. Source: Cecil Democrat, Nov. 1, 1962
