Firetruck Homecoming
When you tell someone that you are moving into a firehouse, they inevitably ask you two questions.
“Does it have a fire pole?”
Yes, it does.
“Does it come with a firetruck?”
The answer to this was sadly, “No.”
I knew I would have to keep answering this question over and over, so I started searching for an old fire truck to park out front as decoration.
I searched eBay and Craigslist for a few weeks until I came across an ad for an old firetruck. The gentleman said that he actually had six old firetrucks his father had collected back in the 1970s, but never got around to restoring them before he passed away. They had all been sitting outside on the farm for the past 40+ years and were in varying states of rust and rot.
We walked around the farm, and he showed me all of the trucks he had. Two trucks sitting side by side in one area caught my eye. One was a really short 1940s-era Ford, and the other was a 1930s-era open-cab truck that I didn’t recognize.
They had been sitting so long that a tree was growing through one of them!
The original plan was to just buy one for decoration, not to drive. So the fact that they were in such bad shape wasn’t as big a deal. I only wanted one.
So I stood there, trying to decide which one to take home. After about 30 minutes of going back and forth, I realized I couldn’t make up my mind, so I told him I would think it over and return later.
About three weeks later, I returned, still unsure of which one I wanted. But I knew I would be able to decide with one more visit to the trucks.
After another half-hour of walking around the trucks, I was faced with the fact that I still couldn’t decide. It was like trying to separate two siblings who had lived together and formed a bond. Bringing just one of the trucks home didn’t seem right.
Then, the owner made the fateful comment in his best West Georgia accent.
“I tell you what. I’ll make you a deal for both of them.”
It was an offer I couldn’t refuse. We shook hands, and I called a towing company to drag them back to Smyrna.
The 1930s-era truck had an American Legion logo on the side and bench seating in the back, which I knew had been added later in its life. (It wasn’t part of the usual fire equipment.)
After a few hours of research, I found out that it was a 1939 Holabird Firetruck, actually manufactured by the U.S. Army on a surplus WWI truck chassis. It was named Holabird because it was built at the Holabird Army Base in Maryland. After WWII, the army sold off most of these as surplus equipment.
The shorter 1947 Ford firetruck took a different path.
As I passed the truck every day on the way to my shop, I began to imagine one day being able to drive it instead of just admiring it as yard art.
I thought that, over the next few years, I could work on it and someday get it roadworthy again. Within a few weeks, this had changed to “over the next few months” that I would get it running.
It underwent an extensive mechanical restoration that included removing and reinstalling the rear body, rewiring, new tires, brakes, and many new mechanical components. We were able to get the original flathead V8 running, and it still has the original transmission.
A few months after I purchased the trucks, I visited the Smyrna History Museum located in the train depot around the corner from the firehouse. I was looking to get some old, historic photos to hang on the wall for decoration.
While I was there, I saw a small display of photos from the 1950s dedicated to the Smyrna Fire Department.
As I quickly glanced at the photos, one particular photo caught my eye. It was a photo of a 1940s-era Ford firetruck. The picture was a poor-quality black-and-white photo, but I noticed the truck looked similar to the one I purchased.
I stood there for a couple of minutes, studying the photo, and slowly realized there were too many similarities between the truck in the photo and the one I had brought back from West Georgia.
Normally, the museum has a quiet atmosphere similar to a library, but I couldn’t help but turn and shout, “Harold, come here quick!“
Harold is the 80-year-old gentleman who ran the museum, and he doesn’t go anywhere quickly. So, after what seemed like an eternity, Harold finally made his way from his office over to the display.
I honestly can’t recall a time in the past 20 years when I’ve been this excited—borderline emotional, even—as the moment I told him that one of the trucks I’d purchased, the one I’d always imagined might have been a City of Smyrna fire truck, could actually be the very one in the photo hanging in the museum.
He took me downstairs to the basement, where there were some old photo albums and documents in storage. He suggested I look through them to see if I found more photos.
After only a few minutes, I had found additional photos that showed the truck in more detail. I was getting more and more confident that I had one of the original City of Smyrna firetrucks.
I continued searching through the photo albums when I turned a page and saw a color photo of my other firetruck, the 1939 Holabird.
At this point, I was sitting alone in the museum’s basement, looking around in complete disbelief. I kept flipping through albums from different years and found photo after photo of both trucks, along with a newspaper article from 1950 about the city selling the Holabird to the American Legion.
A few days later, my phone rang. It was the City of Smyrna fire chief introducing himself and asking if he could come by and see the trucks. It was a lot of fun talking to someone who was as excited about the news as I was. Later, I spoke to the mayor, and he told me stories about riding in the ’47 Ford as a little kid.
The 1939 Holabird is, unfortunately, too far gone to be restored. But it will be an important part of the firehouse, and something I will always see as art because of the emotional response I get every time I look out the window and see it sitting outside.
The 1947 Ford is now my “therapy” vehicle, because it is impossible to be in a bad mood when I drive it.
There were many moments when I questioned my own sanity for taking on this project, which has consumed my life for the past several years. But knowing that I was able to bring these two trucks “home” is one of the many things that has made all of the time and work completely worth it.
—Robert