Afterwards, the public then joined Mayor Frank Mullens and firefighters for a reception and a tour of the new station.

The county wants to replace the cramped, outdated facility with a modern one farther north, where response times lag well behind the county standard.

But the proposal, which the Arlington County Board is scheduled to vote on Tuesday night, has generated a swell of opposition — from African American neighbors worried that this proud yet painful chapter of their history will be forgotten, and from residents of all races who say a fire station at the county’s preferred site eight blocks north won’t solve the response-time problem.

The controversy is the latest example of a persistent challenge in this densely populated county just outside the nation’s capital: The demand for infrastructure competes with a desire for green space, even as tight municipal budgets force officials to look for the most economical ways to build and preserve modern facilities.

The saga of Fire Station 8 started about a year ago, when residents learned that the county planned to close the building and move the crew. People mobilized, including three descendants of those first firefighters: Wilma Jones, Kitty Clark Stevenson and Marguarite Reed Gooden.

But opponents of moving the station are also citing the county’s own data, which shows more than twice as many 911 calls from the more densely populated area around the existing fire station than from the county’s northernmost neighborhoods, which are primarily composed of affluent, single-family homes.

The county also wants to encourage new high-rise developments along Lee Highway in the coming decades, adding to the number of residents — and, presumably, 911 calls — close to the existing station.

He credits the community, previous Fire Chief Cory Wilson and Fire District No. 2 Commissioners Larry Jensen, Jim Carter and Miland Walling for getting the much-needed new station.

While construction was completed in just over a year, Carter and Jensen both noted there was at least one setback — a spring storm that brought 100 mph-plus wind gusts.

"We had just put the trusses up and the insulation down," Carter said. "Before we could get the metal (roof) down, we had a 100 mph windstorm. We had a problem."

With the station complete, Jensen said the fire crew will be better able to meet the needs of the district, which extends from Yakima and Benton counties to west of Cleveland and from the Yakama reservation to Alderdale.

To facilitate completion of Station No. 1, City Council members on Monday signed off on a $20,000 contract with Savannah-based Trison Service Inc. to install cables and fiber. The vote is one of the last required for the station, which is now on the path for an early completion, said Simmons, who spoke by phone from an inspection of one of five new fire trucks the city has purchased.

The chief said that while initial estimates had put the new Station No. 1 at completion by this fall, it now appears the new facility near the city recreation park on South Rogers Street will be complete in mid-August. The station will replace the former Station No. 1, which is being converted into a courtroom on the site of the city’s forthcoming municipal complex on U.S. 80.

City officials voted at the end of last year to award the contract for construction of the new Station No. 1 — a $1.5 million expense being paid for out of special purpose local option sales tax funds.