When Al Finseth of Augusta looks back, acquiring and restoring his "unbelievably rare" antique firetruck was entirely a tale of luck and one-in-a-million circumstances. Along with nine other antique firetrucks, Finseth's pride and joy, a 1938 Packard firetruck, was parked in front of the Chippewa Valley Museum Sunday afternoon as part of the Chippewa Valley chapter of the Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of Antique Motor Fire Apparatus in America's Antique Firetruck Show.
Spectators of all ages wandered around the lawn, admiring the gleaming firetrucks dating from the 1930s to the 1960s.
"I'm a volunteer firefighter, so I like seeing all the old vehicles and all the history," Dan Smith of Sand Creek said. "Back then you didn't have a lot, so they did with what they had." Another truck displayed was the museum's own 1931 Seagrave fire engine which is not usually publicly displayed.
Restoring the truck, a process that cost him about $131,000 and spanned over 15 years since he purchased the truck in 1999, was not easy for Finseth -- it took about a year for him to get the firetruck, which started its run in Eau Claire in 1938, then moved to Fall Creek in 1954, where it was eventually retired in the late 1990s and given to the Fall Creek Lions Club.