By Michael Shaw 
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
Copyright 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
All Rights Reserved 

BROOKLYN, Mo. — The once-struggling Brooklyn Fire Department took delivery Wednesday of its first new firetruck in recent memory, purchased largely with a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant.

The village has come a long way since 2001, when a bank repossessed one of its trucks from a Springfield, Ill., garage while two other trucks sat immobile in repair bays. The village had failed to pay on a $100,000 loan and later declared bankruptcy.

"St. Louis loaned us a truck and we were using that one," Fire Chief Brett Walker recalled. Once, a stalled truck had to be pushed to a blaze by firefighters.

The new truck a 1,000-gallon pumper with a $175,000 price tag. The department's other two trucks are pushing past middle age for firetrucks at 29 and 35 years old.

Chief Walker said the truck couldn't come at a better time. The all-volunteer department has responded to about twice as many calls this year — about 40 — compared with previous years. That figure includes runs to help neighboring towns fight fires.

Walker, 49, is a school teacher who's on disability after suffering a stroke. He's barred from actually fighting fires because of the disability, he said, but can still run the department.

Brooklyn, dubbed America's first black town by scholars, had a population 676 in the 2000 census.

In addition to the funds from FEMA, the Greater East St. Louis Community Fund supplied about $9,500, said secretary-treasurer Louis Tiemann.