New England Fire and History Museum [MA]

Description

The New England Fire and History Museum presents the history of firefighting on both regional and national levels. Collections include the world's last remaining 1929 Mercedes Benz firetruck, antique firefighting equipment, and a diorama of the Great Chicago Fire. The complex also boasts a blacksmith shop, herb and contemplation gardens, and a restored apothecary.

The museum offers exhibits, gardens, and blacksmithing demonstrations.

Aurora Regional Fire Museum [IL]

Description

The Aurora Regional Fire Museum, housed within a fire station, presents the history of firefighting in Aurora, Illinois and surrounding counties. The museum also disperses information on fire prevention and safety. Collections include over 100 objects on display and the official archives of the Aurora Fire Department.

The museum offers exhibits; educational programs on the museum collections, architecture, museums, and the Great Chicago Fire of 1871; and guided tours.

Safety Learning Center and Fire Museum [OR]

Description

The Safety Learning Center and Fire Museum presents fire safety information and the history of firefighting in the U.S. via a variety of relevant artifacts. Collection highlights include historic pumpers, hose carts, ladders, firefighting garb, and a circa 1865 roster board.

The center offers tours, hands-on activities, and home fire safety consultations. Reservations are required for tours.

Connecticut Fire Museum [CT]

Description

The Connecticut Fire Museum seeks to present and increase appreciation of antique fire apparatus and associated content. Equipment on display includes a wide variety of historical pumpers, hose wagons, ladder trucks, and airport crash trucks dating from 1850 to 1967.

The museum offers exhibits. The website offers information on the aforementioned equipment and historical photographs.

Haddon Fire Company Museum [NJ]

Description

The Haddon Fire Company Museum houses two pumpers (dating from 1818 and 1873), helmets, uniforms, a collection of metal toy fire equipment, and the company's original banner. The site has been structured to suggest how a fire house might have looked 200 years ago. The Haddon Fire Company is the nation's second oldest volunteer fire company in continuous existence, founded in 1764.

The museum offers exhibits.

Benicia Fire Museum [CA]

Description

The Benicia Fire Museum houses historic fire service equipment and hundreds of related items from the Benecia Volunteer Firemen Incorporated, the oldest continuous volunteer fire service in California (dating to 1847). Fire equipment from the former Benicia Arsenal Military Reservation in also on display. Collection highlights include a 1920's Phoenix engine, a circa 1855 Solano engine, an 1833 Griffin pumper, a replica of the first hand pumper, a circa 1932 Dodge, and the only open cab four wheel drive fire engine west of the Mississippi.

The museum offers exhibits.

Hose No. 5 Fire Museum [ME]

Description

The Hose No. 5 Fire Museum presents firefighting history via artifacts. Collection highlights include a 1930 McCann pumper, a 1946 Jeep Willys outfitted for fighting forest fires, and a 1917 Garford pumper—one of three Garford fire engines still in existence. The museum is housed in a 1897 fire station. The station remained in use for nearly a century.

The museum offers exhibits.

Cincinnati Fire Museum [OH]

Description

The Cincinnatti Fire Museum exhibits Greater Cincinnati's firefighting artifacts while honoring firefighters, past and present. The collection covers 200 years; and highlights include early leather fire buckets; an 1808 fire drum; and the oldest surviving fire engine in Cincinnati, an Hunneman hand pumper. Guests can also enter a modern Emergency–One fire engine cab. The museum is located in a 1907 firehouse.

The museum offers exhibits, field trip programming, a short film, computer interactives, hands–on activities, and safety demonstrations.

Museum of the City of New York [NY]

Description

The Museum of the City of New York presents the history of New York City and its people. Permanent exhibits offer artifacts and information relevant to New York's theatrical history, interior design, firefighting, maritime commerce, and toys made or used in the city. The collection consists of 1.5 million items in the following categories: decorative arts; prints, photographs, paintings, sculptures, and drawings of the city and/or its people; theater and Broadway; toys; and costumes and textiles.

The museum offers a 25-minute introductory multimedia presentation, exhibits, lectures, performances, guided school tours, educational programs, self-guided tours, summer programs, educator workshops, an after school architecture and urban planning program, and Saturday American history classes. Reservations are required for all school groups, guided or self-guided. Headsets and neck loops are available for hard-of-hearing visitors, and all films are captioned. The website offers materials for self-guided school groups.

Due to ongoing renovations, the fire engines are in storage; and the halls containing the exhibit New York Interiors (1690-1906) is currently closed.