San Jose Fire Museum

Want to know a secret? Want to see the most comprehensive collection of restored historic fire engines west of the Mississippi? Want to know who owns all of these very expensive vintage vehicles, and what you have to do to be invited to see them? Sitting in the back warehouse, behind the old Beechnut Building on Senter Road, is one of the finest collections of fire trucks, fire engines and related apparatus in the United States. This remarkable collection is even more unique because it is a comprehensive collection, dating back to 1855, and all owned and operated by the same jurisdiction…ours.

Over many years, the San Jose Muster team has managed to acquire and restore San Jose’s old fire trucks as they have come out of service. Many of these rigs are now in beautiful condition, thanks to hundreds of hours spent in loving restoration by devoted volunteers, as well as generous donations from several benefactors. Some of the machines are worth nearly a million dollars…each. It’s a phenomenal collection, but the general public is not only unaware of its existence, it is nearly impossible to get access to see them.

The rigs deserve to be on display, and a small group of dedicated enthusiasts have found a suitable structure. The venue they have picked is perfect for a new fire museum. It is an old firehouse, built in 1950 but now out of service, like the rigs it could house. The building is old Station One, located right next door to new Station One, on North Market Street in Downtown San Jose.

Currently owned by the San Jose Redevelopment Agency, the building is solidly built, and has enough head room to hold even the largest vehicles. The price tag for the building is a little over $4 million, a bargain for a building of this type. Replacing or replicating a structure of this type would cost far more.

Designed in 1950 by the San Jose architectural firm of Binder & Curtis, old Station One is a handsome example of mid-century modern architecture. The supervising designer was Warren Heid, William Binder’s young nephew, just out of the architecture school at University of California-Berkeley. The building has recently been evaluated as a local landmark and easily qualified. It would be a very appropriate home for the new San Jose Fire Museum and a good place to house our very special collection.

Fire Station 1 interior

What makes the collection so special? Without a doubt, it is the age, rarity and condition of the vehicles. It is hard to pick the most wonderful rig in the collection, since San Jose has so many. One very special rig is the oldest, the first real piece of apparatus that San Jose bought way back in 1855. This little hand pumper is known as Old 41, because that was its name when it served with the New York Volunteer Fire Department in 1820. It was shipped around the Horn in 1850 and saw several years of service in San Francisco before being bought by San Jose in 1855.

While many departments would have put this little pumper on the scrap heap, San Jose cherished and restored this remarkable piece and there is not another one on the West Coast. Someone told me that it is the oldest piece of apparatus on the West Coast, and I can believe that claim. Old 41 was on display for many years at History San Jose and is now being displayed near the Rotunda of the new San Jose City Hall.

My next favorite rig has to be the 1937 American-LaFrance Metropolitan. It is everything a classic fire engine should be; it is open to the air, carries ladders on the side and sports an impressive V-12 engine. The Metropolitan was the top of the line when it was purchased – planned for service in the little community of Willow Glen. But Willow Glen decided to become part of San Jose, and the community brought their new fire engine along. With vintage gold leaf and decorative pin striping, it is one of the most handsome vehicles in the collection.

There are several other vehicles that are very rare and very valuable and two of them are the Knox-Martin and the Amoskeag pumper. Both vehicles date to the steam era and saw service before 1900. The Knox-Martin is a hybrid. The back of it is a steamer; years later the horses were replaced with a 1914 Knox-Martin, three-wheeled tractor. This updated the rig and gave maximum flexibility in tight turns. San Jose has the only operational Knox-Martin in America. The only other example is in the Smithsonian and cannot be driven.

The other all-time favorite early steam pumper is the Amoskeag, affectionately known as “The Engine that Saved San Jose”. Fire fighting is just one area in which San Jose has proven to be superior to San Francisco. During the great earthquake and fire of 1906, San Jose’s downtown also suffered massive damage. But unlike San Francisco, in San Jose the fires were contained and the city was saved by machines like the Franklin Engine #3, the Amoskeag pumper.

The Amoskeag was an 1890’s horse-drawn rig, housed in the imposing three-story brick Franklin Fire House on South First Street, completed in 1889. The fire house collapsed during the 1906 earthquake, and the pumper was damaged. The firemen pulled it out of the rubble, rolled it into the street and hooked it up. It pumped for three days without stopping, keeping the Downtown fires from spreading.

After a lifetime of service, the Amoskeag was retired and forgotten. Decades later, it was discovered in a Lodi warehouse, sitting in various boxes and bins. A dedicated enthusiast named Bruce Kegg discovered and restored the Amoskeag, leaving only a small tell-tale dent in the boiler to recall its finest hour in 1906. Thanks to a generous financial contribution from the John and Christine Davis family, our Amoskeag is again ready for service.

The history of San Jose, the oldest city in the West, can be told through its fire service. No other jurisdiction has such a complete collection of apparatus, from the early days of 1850 to the present, telling the story of a municipality from its beginning. It is a unique story of the American West, and it deserves to have a much wider audience. The efforts to secure a new home for the collection are being spearheaded by retired Fire Chief John McMillan. For ongoing information about the collection and the plans for the Museum, see the website at sanjosefiremuseum.com.

by April Halberstadt