By Wade Coggeshall
The Hendricks County Flyer
INDIANAPOLIS — Fire trucks have come a long way from the horse-drawn steam engines of yore.
Over the weekend at the Wayne Township Conference Center, attendees got to see fire apparatuses from the beginning to the present — all refurbished to their former glory.
The National Association of Antique Fire Truck Collectors conducted its annual conference here, with local chapter Pompier, Pump, and Playpipe Society of Indiana (PPPSI) hosting.
The event changes location each year. Last year it was in Syracuse, N.Y. The year before in Columbus, Ohio. Next year it goes to Denver. The last time Indianapolis hosted was in 2001.
“Different chapters are nuts enough to say, ‘Yeah, we’ll try to do this,’” said Scott Rollins, a member of PPPSI and one of the event organizers. “We look to have 3,000 or 4,000 people here over the course of the day. When we hosted this in 2001, we had nearly 200 rigs and about 5,000 people.”
Besides a cornucopia of antique fire trucks, there also was a fire-related flea market featuring vendors from coast to coast.
“Anybody that likes fire trucks is here,” Rollins said. He added, however, that owning a fire truck is not a requirement for membership to the club.
“If you like antique fire stuff and the history, that’s what we’re all about,” Rollins said. “The fire trucks are a bonus.”
The ones who do own such vehicles were happy to bring them. Carriages from the 1800s and fire trucks from the 1910s were on site. A particularly nice example was a 1938 Ahrens Fox Model HT, which once served the city of Sandusky, Ohio. It was bought by a fire museum in Colorado and restored more than 10 years.
Dave Zimmerman drove a fire truck owned by a friend from his hometown just north of Dayton, Ohio.
“It’s interesting to see people’s love of things and restoring them,” he said. “A lot of fire departments get rid of them and they just sit and rust. But people like this bring them back.”
Zimmerman is chief of his local fire department, and has been a member of the fire service for 47 years. His department has a steam engine from 1884 that they restored and still use.
“This stuff is in your blood,” Zimmerman said. “So you enjoy coming to things like this.”
Rollins, who has been a volunteer firefighter a combined 25 years here and in Mooresville’s Brown Township, would agree. He owns a 50-foot 1958 tiller fire truck, meaning it has separate steering wheels for the front and back, commonly used in areas with narrow streets. The 100-foot ladder on it still works. The only repair it needed was a paint job, something Rollins spent three years on.
“Firefighting is a noble tradition,” he said. “These are the machines that carry that on. That’s probably where the biggest part of this comes from.”
There also are anecdotes that go with each truck. Not just the heroic ones, but the everyday silly stuff too. Rollins learned that when he brought his truck back to its original home in Rochester, Minn., two years ago.
“I had retirees call me for two weeks after that saying, ‘Let me tell you a story about that truck,’” he said.
As a bonus, this time a parade of fire trucks drove from the conference center to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a lap on the oval Saturday morning. It was partly to celebrate IMS’ 100th birthday and 90 years since the birth of Stutz Motor Car/Fire Apparatus Manufacturing. The company built a motorized fleet of pumpers and ladder trucks for the Indianapolis Fire Department in 1920-21.
Copyright 2009