1952 GMC Fire Truck

Another slide photographed by Chuck Madderom outside the Ainsworth-Deep River Fire Department station on September 19, 1983.


(Click on image to enlarge)

Handwritten notes on the original read:

1952 GMC
250/500
55C

… which is Greek to me.

1969 Darley Champion Diesel Pumper, Take Two

(Click on image to enlarge)

Here we have probably the very same truck featured in the 1971 advertisement.

The photo was taken on September 19, 1983, by Charles "Chuck" Madderom, from whom I purchased the slide. His handwritten notes on the original read:

1969 DARLEY — FORD 1000/1000
CAT V8 DIESEL

What little I can see of the building in the background looks like the Ainsworth-Deep River Fire Department building.

Darley Champion Diesel Pumper

OK, I could have sworn I posted this a long time ago, but I can't find it in the blog so I must conclude that I'm losing my mind.

This is an advertisement that ran in the March 1970 issue of Fire Engineering magazine, showing off what a fine piece of equipment W.S. Darley & Co. had sold to the Ainsworth-Deep River Fire Department.


(Click on image to enlarge)
From the Ainsworthiana Collection.

"The Entire Town Would Have Been Burned"

The Ainsworth-Deep River Fire Department was formed in 1953. Before then, Ainsworth depended on the improvised efforts of its own residents, and on the fire departments of neighboring towns, to deal with any fires.

On August 20, 1933, Ainsworth just escaped being burned off the face of the earth.

About 2:30 on that Sunday afternoon, Henry Sievert put his car away in his garage, next to a car owned by Leonard Lindborg, and then left the garage to go on about his business, never suspecting that anything was amiss.

Somehow, a fire started inside the garage. Later speculation focused on a short-circuit in one of the cars. Whatever the cause, both cars and the garage itself were soon engulfed in flames.

The fire quickly outstripped the amateur fire-fighting of the Ainsworth residents. Someone called the Hobart fire department as the blaze spread south to William Fratzke's chicken coop and barn. Inside the barn were two tons of coal and a large supply of firewood.

The Hobart fire department showed up and began fighting the fire with chemicals. When their chemical supply ran out and the fire still raged, they began pumping water from two neighbors' wells. By then, the fire was threatening the Fratzke home. The Crown Point fire department arrived and joined in the fight. The combined forces got the blaze under control, but it had been a close shave. According to the firemen, "[H]ad the wind been blowing from the opposite direction the entire town would have been burned."

The barn and the chicken coop, the garage and its contents, were all destroyed — about $2,500 worth of property (roughly $41,600 in today's dollars). Mr. Fratzke had no insurance.

Sources:
♦ "Ainsworth Is Threatened by Sunday Fire." Vidette-Messenger (Valparaiso, Ind.) 22 Aug. 1933. Access Newspaper Archive. Lake County (IN) Public Library 29 Nov. 2009 .
♦ "Databases and Tables: CPI Inflation Calculator." United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 30 Nov. 2009 .
♦ "Hobart." The Times (Hammond, Ind.) 22 Aug. 1933. Access Newspaper Archive. Lake County (IN) Public Library 29 Nov. 2009 .
♦ Ross Township Fire Service: Ainsworth Deep River Volunteer Fire Department. 30 Nov. 2009 .