By George Mills, a former Chief of Bay Leaf VFD
Last year Mike asked to me write a posting about antique fire trucks. Here’s that article from August 2015, where I wrote about several restored and decaying American LaFrance rigs in North Carolina. This time I’m write about my antiques. Beginning with my first, a toy!
My interest in fire trucks started when I was about two-years old, and my parents gave me a working metal, tractor-drawn, Mack aerial ladder made by Smith Miller for Christmas. I still have it.
Above is a picture of my grandson, Dylan, and me laddering the coffee table. With stabilizers out, we’re at the corner of the building and a safe distance from the collapse zone. (Dylan is the son of a career firefighter in Hickory, NC. My boy started as a Bay Leaf volunteer and is currently assigned to HFD Station 7. His ride is a Rosenbauer engine.)
My interest was fanned further while growing up in Albany, NY, in the 1950s. There were many large fires in the old city and I tried to see each first-hand. Now, after forty-four years in the volunteer fire service, I am proud to say I have a second antique and full-sized fire engine of my own.
It’s is my 1920 American LaFrance Type 75 triple combination, #3281, originally served Painesville, OH. It originally cost $12,000 including the pneumatic tire option of $300, and was retired in 1954. I bought it from the estate of a collector in Pana, IL, in August, 2013. Here’s what I saw, when I first arrived:
I had been looking for a truck of my own when a fellow Bay Leaf firefighter found this on Craigslist, of all places. (There are three of us Bay Leaf volunteers that own antique fire trucks.) I bought it and have been enjoying it ever since.
Below are the six Bay Leaf members who came over to help me get the engine “in station” for the first time. The truck is hidden behind them! (Sorry about the blur. Don’t look too closely Mike Legeros!)
This truck has become a labor of love. It has to be! Ownership is expensive. I have spent nearly as much on the truck as it cost to purchase. Money that will never likely be reflected in its value.
Tires $4,000, hand crank siren $500, bell $1,000, ten gallons transmission grease $200, six gallon oil changes; the list is too long to repeat for fear my wife learns too much. She does enjoy riding on it to Goodberry’s for ice cream with friends, however.
After rebuilding the transmission (above left), brake work (above right), and freeing up the fire pump during the winter of 2013-2014, I took it to Station 1 and fed the waterway on Ladder 25.
That’s 740 GPM from a hydrant. It performed flawlessly pumping water for the first time in at least 31 years and maybe as many as 60 years.
Last summer it drafted 700 GPM at an Old Dominion Historical Fire Society muster at Claytor Lake, VA.
In April, we took it to the firefighter’ parade in Winchester, Virginia, for the 89th Annual Apple Blossom Festival (shown above) and came home with a “Best in Show 1920 to 1939” plaque. In the last two years, I have also paraded my truck in the Christmas parades in Rolesville (2014) and Wake Forest (2015).
Last month, I took the truck to the second annual Fire Truck Day at the North Carolina Transportation Museum. You were there, and took a bunch of pictures, as well as a video. Here’s the parade up Main Street, at the end of the event:
The truck is always an attraction for kids that love to climb aboard to ring the bell and crank the siren. I enjoy this as well, unlike many antique fire truck owners that post “Do Not Touch” signs all over their rigs and have heart attacks when someone does. They are fire trucks! What can hurt them? (See below, also from Legeros.) I also enjoy demonstrating how easy it is to start by hand with the crank. It helps me stay in touch with the condition of the engine.
One of the benefits of ownership has been meeting new friends and exchanging information about the hobby with them. I am a member of two SPAAMFAA (Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of Antique Motor Fire Apparatus in America) chapters: Old Dominion Historical Fire Society of Virginia, and the Rekindle Society, which covers the Carolinas. Both are great places to make new friends.
As time moves on, I expect to continue to improve the appearance of the truck, reinstalling a reel, adding stripping, adding hand lanterns. It will be endless, unless I buy another one, which may happen sooner than I think!
I invite anyone to contact me if they want to discuss anything about what I have mentioned. g.c.mills.iii@earthlink.net