Dedication ofFire Station 73 in Newhall (the building at right) in July 1958. It was built immediately north of the old (1928) Soledad Division Headquarters of the L.A. County Forestry Department, a predecessor to the L.A. County Fire Department.

As seen here, the new station was erected before the old one (at left) was razed.

From Fire Capt. Paul Peppard, Fire Station 73-B, Battalion 6, Los Angeles County Fire Department (2014):

The Los Angeles County Fire Department was born from the State's Forest Protection Act of 1905 out of a need to protect our watershed (read: drinking water). The County Board of Supervisors appointed the County Fish and Game Warden to the additional position of Fire Warden. This soon evolved into the Los Angeles County Department of Forester and Fire Warden, a title our fire chief still holds today.

Our initial focus was the wildland areas of the county, with rapid growth occurring in that realm in the early 1920s. At the same time, unincorporated townships were sprouting up throughout the county, so it fell on the Forester and Fire Warden to provide fire protection to these communities, which was accomplished by establishing "fire protection districts" to levy taxes to fund fire protection. So the county fire department became two different "departments" under one roof: the Forestry Department and the Fire Protection Districts — Forestry for the wildland and districts for the towns. (Newhall Fire Protection District actually formed in 1953, so we technically had two different "departments" operating out of one station: E73 for the wildland and E273 for the township.)

It wasn't until 1954 that the two "departments" merged and became the Los Angeles County Fire Department.