1907 Tacoma fire station turned gastropub, with reports tied to its old firefighters
611 N Pine St, Tacoma, WA 98406
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Gastropub and brewery with food and drink at standard restaurant prices. No cover charge to dine.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Tacoma North End; paved, ground-floor dining in a historic building
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1907 · National Register of Historic Places · 1907 Fire Station · Tacoma's First Craft Brewery · Tacoma North End History
Engine House No. 9 opened in 1907 to serve Tacoma's growing North End and for many years operated as battalion headquarters. It was the last station in the city to give up horse-drawn equipment: in 1919, firefighters Rufus Harben and Earle More made the final symbolic run aboard an Amoskeag steam pumper drawn by the horses Nip, Dick, and Joe.
The station stayed in service until 1965, when it was abandoned. Over the next seven years vandals set at least three fires inside the empty building, stripping and battering it. A newspaper reporter rediscovered the wreck in 1971, and Win Anderson and Bob Lane bought and restored the property, converting the ground floor into a tavern and the upper floor into an apartment. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.
In 1995 a seven-barrel brewing system was installed in an adjoining building, making it Tacoma's first craft brewery. The brewery expanded after the Xitco and Paradise families bought the Engine House No. 9 restaurant and brewery in 2011, adding fermentation capacity and distribution. The house ale Rowdy Dick Amber is named for two of the station's last fire horses; local accounts hold that when the horses died they were given firemen's funerals and buried with their gear behind the firehouse.
Sources
The haunting reputation of Engine House No. 9 follows the building's working past as a fire station. The reports center on the firefighters who served there: a sense, in staff accounts, that they never entirely left their post.
The activity most often described is everyday and physical rather than dramatic — pans knocked off counters in the kitchen, objects moved, and unexplained sightings reported by employees over the years. The lore frames these as the old crew trying to get back to work.
According to local coverage, the owners eventually hired a medicine man, who is said to have identified a number of presences in the building, both welcome and not. Accounts hold that the reported activity decreased after that visit. None of this is documented in any formal investigation, and the building's day-to-day identity is a busy neighborhood gastropub and brewery. The stories survive alongside the well-recorded history of the station and its horse-drawn crews.
Notable Entities
E9 Firehouse occupies Engine House No. 9, built in 1907 to protect Tacoma's North End. The lower floor that once held the fire apparatus is now the gastropub and taproom; Tacoma's first craft brewery was added here in 1995. Visitors can eat and drink in the restored 1907 station, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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