Copyright 2006 San Antonio Express-News
All Rights Reserved
By NICOLE LESSIN
San Antonio Express-News (Texas)
At the gleaming new Fire Station 48 on Bulverde Road, a leather chief’s helmet, soda-acid fire extinguishers and boxes of dusty ledgers — recording everything from fire-station expenses to funds for funerals — are among the firefighting items on display in a storage room.
For years, the history of the San Antonio Fire Department has been scattered around the city at various fire stations. Now, a group of volunteers hope it will have a home at a planned Fire History Museum and fire safety education center at a deactivated fire station in the Lavaca Historic District, south of HemisFair Park.
“I don’t know how many kids grow up not wanting to be firefighters,” said Hector Cardenas, a retired 33-year veteran of the Fire Department who has archived much of the collection.
“It’s the last of the romantic occupations. We still have got cowboys, but firemen have been around forever.”
The project is being spearheaded by the San Antonio Fire Museum Society, an offshoot of a Fire Museum committee that Chief Robert Ojeda created in 1997 to tell the story of the fire service to the general public.
The society, which includes about 15 retired and active-duty firefighters as well as civilian volunteers, hopes to open a section of the museum by this fall.
“The history of fire services is so tied to the development and history of our economy and the welfare of our citizens,” said Frank Walsh, a retired firefighter and the president of the society.
“In movie theaters, it’s no accident there are ample exits. Hundreds of thousands of people have died. Based on these accidents, codes were enacted to see that this never happened again.”
Despite their enthusiasm, the volunteers have their work cut out for them.
The two-story structure in Lavaca is a hybrid of the old and the new. The walls have peeling paint. The facility is cooled through a “haphazard array of window units.” Linoleum — which might contain asbestos fibers, officials say — covers the original kitchen floors.
“The challenge is to make it vintage and (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant,” Walsh said. “They have given us a building that is in dire need of attention.”
In fact, the volunteers are even looking for a way to put in an elevator.
The collection will include vintage equipment, uniforms, documentation and seven vehicles.
It also will include old photographs, some even dating back to the 19th century.
“The horses back then had better benefits and vacations than the firefighters,” Walsh said with a smile.
To raise money, the volunteers have held hot dog and T-shirt sales. They hope to increase their funding through grants, loans, donations, and public and private partnerships after acquiring nonprofit status.
While Cardenas and Walsh said they have received support from neighborhood groups, Lavaca resident Joan Carabin said she would prefer to see the building being used for residential purposes.
Still, she hopes the museum will be a draw.
“I don’t doubt that they can get it off the ground, that they can renovate the building and that they can do a beautiful job,” she said. “What I doubt is that they can get an audience.”
Cardenas said he has visited a number of fire museums to research the project and learned they are a draw.
“Everybody I have talked to has known a fireman and has had a fireman in their family, or has been helped by a fireman,” he said. “Running around on the trucks with the sirens — kids and big kids love it.”