Firefighters ‘disappointed’ over pending sale of Old No. 1
 BY VICKI KNOPFLER
 ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER
  HIGH POINT – Four High Point firefighters, active and retired, used the same word about the pending sale of Old No. 1: “disappointed.”
  Damon Tobin, a captain with the High Point Fire Department, and retired firefighters Jackie Baker, Max Moffitt and Ken Norman, all of whom worked in Old No. 1, were thrilled in the summer of 2005 at the prospect of the old firehouse containing fire department exh ibits.
  Years ago, they hoped the city would buy it, but viewed TAG ownership as the next-best thing. They were helping Theatre Art Galleries Director Beth Ilder- ton research its history.
  They now believe the city is losing a vital piece of its history and that downtown High Point needs something other than furniture-related buildings.
  “High Point is having growing pains,” Tobin said. “It’s a large town trying to make the leap from small city, but we’re not doing that. We need to have a museum dedicated to the public s er v i c es.” “We had such great plans for using part of the building for a fire department mini-museum,” Baker said.
  “It’s one of the oldest buildings in High Point. It was the seat of High Point. Wills, birth certificates, death certificates were all done there.”
Norman has been doing research for a booklet on the fire department’s histor y.
  “Like every building downtown, you can see what will happen,” Norman said.
  Old station No. 4 at 1329 N. Main St. now is a beauty salon, and Moffitt considers Old No. 1 even more historically significant.
  “I would have liked to have seen the city get it a long time ago,” Moffitt said. “We should not have given it up. We should have kept it in the first place.
  “It was everything to the city.
 vknopfler@hpe.com |888-3601
 They now believe the city is losing a vital piece of its history and that downtown High Point needs something other than furniture-related buildings.