It looks like today is going to be an improptu “Old Truck Day” here at CC, which is timely, as I shot this 1941 Ford fire truck just yesterday (be careful, the pixels are still wet).
The Howe company was founded in 1872 after the horrible fires and loss of life in five different major US fires in 1871, including the Great Chicago Fire. Their first product was a piston-pump fire wagon that could be operated by a team of twenty men or by the team of horses that had drawn it to the fire. The pump design was so good, it remained in production over one hundred years.
Manually-operated pumps eventually gave way to gasoline engine pumps, and Howe kept right up with the latest technology, introducing their first vehicle-mounted pump for sale in 1908. As the company grew, they moved to Anderson, Indiana to produce fire trucks on Lambert chassis. Ironically, their offices burned down due to a pot-bellied stove catching fire. Howe alternated between building vehicles on custom chassis and using commercial chassis such as this Ford.
Howe produced fire apparatus during both World Wars, and specialized in small- to medium-sized community and private fire operations like those mounted by airports and corporations. The company survived through four generations before having to cease operations in 1978 (after being purchased by Grumman Industries) due to faltering sales after the government ended revenue sharing for the purchase of fire equipment. Howe branded trucks were continued to be produced by Grumman through 1982.
This truck has long been retired from “active duty,” but would make a great parade vehicle (heck, I’d get a kick out of driving it to work every so often!). Hopefully someone will pick it up soon and do just that.
I’ve been very busy, lately, and haven’t had any time to linger here or on TTAC. Today I made an effort.
Seeing this pumper brings back a memory and I wish I had my photos handy to scan…
I took a Sunday drive one fine day in 1972, west of Yuba City past the Sutter Buttes, turned north along the Sacramento River, and near the Princeton Ferry sat an old pumper very similar to this in the weeds alongside the road. I took a photo with the ol’ Instamatic.
It’s amazing how small these vehicles really were, although probably considered big at the time!
If I remember, I’ll scan it this evening and post it if the thread isn’t played out by then.
There’s something about ANY fire engine that brings out the boy in every man!
Well, these weren’t really the “big fire engines” of the time. Typically, big cities with bigger budgets bought fire trucks from manufacturers that typically had their chassis, cabs and even engines, like Seagrave, American LaFrance, Crown, etc, which sometimes even built their own engines, since big pumps need lots of horsepower.
But the smaller towns often bought these cheaper models built on common truck chassis, like this Ford. Made sense, since they typically didn’t get used as heavily as the big guys in the big cities.
Interestingly, Howe built the then-largest fire truck in the world for Lockheed Martin in Marietta, Ga back in the 1970s (where the C5A/B were made).
Paul, here’s a photo of the fire truck mentioned above near the Princeton Ferry. Defunct for years, unfortunately, the Butte City bridge a few miles north did it in.
The truck was defunct in 1972 and looked it.!
Here’s the view of the cab.
The Princeton Ferry, just for grins.
These old firetrucks are great, and this is a terrific find. I’ve accumulated quite a few pictures of various ones the last year.
I did see one still in use a while back on a trip to St. Louis….as a food truck. It was pumping out barbecue like there was no tomorrow.
“Our sauce is so hot we serve it from a fire truck!”
Man, you’re good!
Saw one owned by a brewery in CO a few months ago
It reminds me of the first truck that my father bought with his first low-bed trailer in 1948 or so. It was a black 1941 Ford that was said to have a “big Merc” engine in it. It had a 2-speed brownie behind the 4-speed transmission, so it had plenty of gears. When he sold a TD-14 bulldozer to a fellow in Sixes, Oregon, the deal included delivery to Sixes. I got to ride along, and it was quite a trip down the two-lane highways of the day. At least one night we slept in sleeping bags on beds of fir branches under the trailer parked beside the road.
It was a stout enough Ford, but it really wasn’t big enough for what Pop needed – he had just bought a TD-18 bulldozer – so it was traded for an almost new 1949 International KB-11F.
I love the look of Ford trucks of that era, whether dressed up for fighting fires or otherwise.
My hometown had a Ford V8 firetruck it was considered the ‘new’ one when I was a child then suddenly the brigade aquired a brand new TK Bedford appliance the Ford was kept on as a secondary unit and the Brass era Dennis engine still operating and the worlds oldest was donated to MOTAT(museum of transpoert and technology) in Auckland who have let it rot away, Ive seen it since (bastards). This old Ford sure brings back memories, thanx Ed.
It brings back memories here as well. It’s the same color and look as my old cornbinder. Obviously not the same but something really hits the memory banks.
Now if I could just remember what I had for lunch today I would think I was almost back to normal.
Sweet old Fire Truck. When I’m cruising craigslist I’ll search for Fire Trucks from time to time. Sure I’d likely only pull it out a couple of times a year but it would still be cool to own a Fire Truck. Heck with the bed set up of this one attach some doors onto the hand rails on each side and it could also do duty hauling things to the dump, lumber, or gravel. Since this one has a closed cab unlike many from this era it could even be used year round.
1953 Chevrolet fire truck. It has spent it’s entire life on Bell Island, off the coast of Newfoundland.
I grew up in a town a bit south of a very small New England town with a fairly large geographical area. The town had a central village area, but the rest of it spread out over hills and valleys and there were one or two tiny villages and also a lake with a lot of summer cottages. The main fire department was in the big village and had the newest trucks.
The other villages, and the lake area, had their own volunteer fire departments since they were a solid 10-15 mile drive on narrow back roads from the main village. Those volunteer departments were staffed almost completely by older trucks. I distinctly remember being a 16-18 year old exploring the countryside in that town and seeing the garage doors on the little volunteer station up with only old (50s-60s) trucks inside. Once, I even saw them in action, responding to an alarm in the lake area.
I think practically speaking their job was to a) be in parades but be stored out of the way of the big trucks in the village and b) respond to anything within range of the volunteer companies, and in a real pinch, spell the new trucks as best they could while the latter sped across town to get out to those hinterlands.
I still saw them in action as recently as the mid 2000s so I presume they are still there. The little rural departments probably see so little action that it makes sense just to keep those trucks on “just in case” and have them for parade use at other times. Plus a town of that size probably can’t afford to buy new trucks for all of the stations. Keep the other ones on duty since they’re paid for, and they can hold the fort for a few minutes while the modern trucks get to the scene.
With the smaller and particularly volunteer depts it is pretty common to obtain a used truck often from a larger dept. Often times trucks will also get put in the secondary/parade role when a newer truck is obtained. It is not all that uncommon to find Fire trucks that are 30 or 40 years old finally being retired from service from smaller depts having went from large dept front line, to large dept backup, to small dept front line down to small dept backup and some will still have only 10 or 20K miles on them.
is there anyone that doesnt love an old fire truck?
Im a volunteer fireman in a rural county and have been for more than 20 years and its not uncommon to see trucks in rural areas, particularly brush trucks, that are 30+ years old. We have an 85(?) Ford F350 brush truck with a 7.3 diesel that only has 30K miles on it and a neighboring county has a 1964 Dodge Power Wagon still in service.
And to think, that someday, the truck I drove today for work will be like this. It’s a 2012 Ford F-650, 25ft flatbed, powered by Cummins diesel, complete with urea tank. And just 1288 miles on it when I got back from a Portland to Corvallis run.
is the Cummins stock?
Back in 2003, I was with a bunch of guys for an overnighter at Mineral Washington, up in the Cascade foothills.
The place was the old Hammermill paper plant if I recall, and it is used as the store yard for the Elbe Scenic train.
One of the guys works for Burlington Northern, again if I recall. Anyway, he owned an old 1940’s era caboose that he had restored and stored there, and that was where we spent the night, some of us in campers, others in tents on an old flatbed rail car.
Out beyond the gravel area where we sat and enjoyed the fire (in a fire pit) was ground cover, plants and small bushes, and in the growing vegetation were two very old, fire trucks, probably from the 50’s or sixties, pretty stripped out, one of which had a motor in the middle, but it was completely gone, the bodies were decaying in the brush, just left there to rot, and had been for a very long time too.
In my hometown of Redondo Beach, the 1970’s brought a lot of high-rise apartment buildings. A custom low-profile fire engine, made from an early 1970’s International truck, was built to enter the underground parking garages in case of a fire. The big units the city had were Seagrave, but this thing may have been a Howe.
Absolutely love that truck, we are starting the very first honor guard in our parish and this would make a great truck for funerals. Only problem is we are low on getting funding so anyone that has a classic fire truck they would like to sell for cheap or maybe donate please contact me. nlfd.11cjohnson@yahoo.com