Remember our posting about the Amcel Propulsion Company Fire Brigade in Buncombe County, from August 2014? We talked about their history which included a 1942 International/American LaFrance engine that originally served Scottdale, PA.

This week, a reader shared a vintage photo of the Scottdale Fire Department, including the later Amcel engine. It’s a picture of a picture and with a bit of digital perspective correction. Don’t know the date.

Read the Blog Archives posting about Amcel. Or click to slightly enlarge:

Here’s another vintage news article, again via North Carolina Newspapers. Date line September 1, 1950. Brevard Fire Department as featured in The Echo, as digitized by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County Library.

The two-page story includes a nice picture of their gorgeous 1945 American LaFrance 500 Series triple combination. They still have that baby. (They also had a 1925 ALF Type 75, and a combination hose/chemical car of likely earlier vintage.)

Love the “rain coat” turnout coats as well. Notes the story, the department had twenty-one members, two new walkie talkies (!), and a new rescue boat and trailer. Read the article. Or search the newspaper sites for more Echo stories about BFD.

Last month, an update on Salisbury’s restoration of their 1941 aerial ladder was shared in this Facebook posting by the Carolina’s Chapter of SPAAMFAA: Rekindle Society group.

The truck is a 1941 American LaFrance Type M-190 mid-mount aerial ladder (65-foot), registration number L-1627, shipped February 13, 1942. No pump, but was equipped to carry 1,000 feet of 2 1/2″ hose. (So said Sanborn Maps in 1950.) Built on either a 500 or 600 series chassis.

Check out the engine work in this picture! Notes the posting, she runs as if factory fresh. Next is a refurb of the hydraulics. See larger pictures via the above Facebook posting.

Rodney Misenheimer photos

It’s history? After serving the city for over forty years as Ladder 1 until replaced with a 1966 American LaFrance 900 Series mid-mount (85-foot), then as a reserve piece it was sold as surplus at auction in the early 1980s.

A resident of the Woodleaf community in Rowan County purchased the truck for its ladder, to fix the roof of his barn. The truck stayed in the barn until rescued by firefighters in 2007, who donated the $2,000 purchase price. Next came funds for restoration, nearly $25,000, which they raised through 5K runs and other donations.

Restoration was led by Jeff Whitley, a local volunteer Fire Chief and antique apparatus mechanic. They started with tires, brakes, and other basics.

For the engine and drive train, the restoration committee discussed replacements and instead chose to restore the original with a goal of it last another 100 years. That refurb cost another $25,000, even with the free labor. Two broken pistons. Transmission gears rebuilt. Engine block sent to Texas for work. Rebuilt alternator and generator, engine water pumps, bearings, etc.

Next are the hydraulics and aerial cable. Then painting, with original color and original gold leaf.

They’re targeting mid-2017 for completion, fully operational including aerial (for raising not climbing), which is the department’s bicentennial anniversary. (Their organization date is December 7, 1817.)

From the North Carolina State Archives comes this picture of the Spencer Shops Fire Department (competition) reel team in 1924. They’re posed “in town” and beside the Methodist church at the corner of Fourth Street and Yadkin Avenue. The industrial fire brigade protected the Southern Railway’s Spencer Shops, once the railroad’s largest steam locomotive repair center.

The facility opened in 1896, and employed between 2,500 and 3,000 people at any one time. The original buildings included shop buildings, a storehouse, an office building, and the famous thirty-seven bay roundhouse. Also originated from the site was the town of Spencer, incorporated in 1901.

The shops closed in 1960, and the site stayed active as a rail yard for freight into the late 1970s. Today, the facility is occupied by the North Carolina Transportation Museum. The railway began donating parcels in 1977 and eventually the entire site.

As for the fire department, it operated from at least 1913 until after 1972. Presuming they were exclusively volunteer, with workers pressed into service for emergencies.

Sanborn Fire Insurance maps cite the department in 1913 as having three hose companies of eleven men each, and about 2,000 feet of 2 1/2-inch hose. Presuming hand hose reels for each. Did they operate motorized apparatus in later decades? To be determined. How many hydrants did they have, and what was the system’s capacity? To be determined.

The adjoining towns of Spencer and East Spencer also had fire departments as early as 1913. The railroad firefighters assisted the town fire departments as needed. Notes the 1913 map, they “received pay for all calls in Spencer.”) The fire alarm system for all three departments was the whistle at the Spencer Shops, at least through 1939.

This photo also appears in the book Southern Railway’s Historic Spencer Shops by Larry K. Neal Jr., as published by Arcadia Publishing in their Images of America series. Notes the author in the caption to this photo, citing a 1920 news story, the shop fire company “could run water in forty-five seconds at any time from any shop building on a surprise alarm.”

What’s the story on the uniforms they’re wearing? That’s likely tournament garb. The shop firefighters competed in state firemen’s competitions in the 1910s and 1920s. As these compiled scores (PDF) note, they won the hand reel contest in 1916, 1920, 1926, and 1928. Among other contests. Click to enlarge:

Courtesy of the North Carolina State Archives