Old Fire Station No. 4

Charlotte Fire Station No. 4 was constructed in the 1925 era and operated as an active Charlotte Fire Department station for several decades. The building is recognized by the Mecklenburg County Historic Landmarks Commission as a designated historic landmark documenting the early-twentieth-century professionalization of municipal firefighting in Charlotte.

On April 1, 1934, firefighter Pruett Livingston Black (born February 6, 1906) was on duty at Station No. 4. At 7:40 AM an alarm sounded; the on-duty crew, sleeping on the second-floor dormitory, dressed hurriedly to reach the brass pole leading to the apparatus floor below. Black lost his footing at the pole opening, became tangled in his bunker pants, and fell headfirst approximately 14 feet to the concrete floor. He was transported to St. Peter's Hospital, where he died of his injuries roughly three hours later. He had joined the Charlotte Fire Department on March 15, 1928 and had been a member for just over six years. He is buried locally; his Find a Grave memorial records his life.

The station continued to operate as an active firehouse for decades and was later decommissioned. From 2002 to 2009 the building housed the Charlotte Firefighters Museum, which closed in 2009 for reasons related to rent. The building has since been used as adaptive-reuse commercial space.

The story of Pruett Black has been substantially documented by Charlotte historian Lewis Powell IV on the Southern Spirit Guide blog and in regional ghost-tour coverage, with verifiable detail drawn from period press accounts, the Charlotte Fire Department's published history, and family records.