"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.

Mayor William Bell said the demolition is a sign to the community of things to come.

"It symbolizes our commitment to move forward, to make sure we do what we can to, as speedily as possible, build this fire station to add to the safety and protection of our citizens in this community," he said.

Authorities said the fire truck was not the intended target and that a suspect in one vehicle was aiming at another.

While the firefighters are at home recovering, the department's chief spoke with concern over the close call.

"We live in the middle of the neighborhood, so if the neighborhood is in upheaval, our station is in the middle of what's going on," Deputy Chief Todd White said.

The Minneapolis Police Department is continuing to review video from security cameras near the scene. Additionally, crime lab investigators have collected the casings and are checking to see if the bullets are connected to other shootings.

Anthony Jackson said he had just arrived home from work when he heard the shots fired. "What kind of world am I living in? I am living in a war zone it seems," Jackson said.

On the other end of the call was Brad Corley, a captain in the Wichita Falls, Texas, fire department, who also operates the Wichita Falls Fire and Police Museum. Corley just so happened to have a bit of information for Shubert on the fire truck.

"I didn't figure I could ever find it," Shubert said. "I figured it was scrapped somewhere."

What information Corley did have for Shubert was that he indeed just happened to be the owner of the 1921 fire engine. Not long after the call, Shubert and his wife were on a flight to Dallas, then drove to Wichita Falls to see the antique in person for the first time.

The truck had been purchased by Hays after firefighters Stephen Tourtillot and Nicholas Arnold died in a fire at Ninth and Oak in 1919.

"It was just like a relief that I had found it," Shubert said.

As it just so happened to work out for Corley, who officially retired from the Wichita Falls Fire Department on Friday, he was able to bring the classic fire truck to Hays this weekend. On Saturday, it was displayed in the first Thunder on the Bricks car show in Municipal Park. On Friday evening at the city fire station on Main Street, Corley pulled the truck out of the station and drove it through the department parking lot. He then answered questions for a number of Hays firefighters who came to see the city's first fire engine.

After purchasing the truck, Corley did some fixing and restoration, including rewiring it.

Through a line of historical checking after he purchased the truck from an electrician's family in Lawton, Okla., who had the REO Speedwagon, Corley found the truck had been in Hays. By chance, Corley called Ellis County Rural Fire Chief Darin Myers and told him he had the fire engine.