Caroline Kubzansky
Chicago Tribune
(TNS)
A 1941 fire engine has returned to Niles after a long sojourn in Wisconsin, village officials announced March 28.
The vehicle, which Fire Chief Marty Feld told village trustees was the second fire engine ever used in Niles, had been in Birchwood (WI) as part of a private collection.
The collection owner contacted the village and asked if officials would be interested in purchasing it, spokesperson Mitch Johnson told Pioneer Press.
“Fire Department staff spent time determining if it was ours, eventually finding a Village document with the original vehicle’s [identification] number,” Johnson wrote in an email to Pioneer Press. “We compared it to the vehicle for sale and it matched.”
The village paid $5,000 for the engine and another $500 in fuel costs to Lin-Mar Towing to bring the engine back to Niles, Johnson said.
The vehicle is in “excellent” condition, Johnson said, and will be part of future parades and special events in the village.
According to information posted on the village website, the first “fire wagon” in the village was a hand-drawn apparatus known as “Blue Boy.” It now resides at Fire Station #2 at the intersection of Dempster Street and Cumberland Avenue, the website states.
Information in the village’s 1999 Centennial History book states that the fire department partially retired Blue Boy to part-time service in 1910 following the purchase of a horse-drawn pumper.
Around the time that the 1941 Pirsch would have been in use in Niles, the Niles Fire Department was raising money for an ambulance, eventually purchased for $6,000.
Niles established a full-time fire department in 1953, according to the centennial history. It had hired its first full-time firefighters in 1947, establishing their salaries at $225/month in 1948 for a combination of firefighting and custodial work.
Neighboring Park Ridge also has its own vintage fire engine from 1934. Also a Pirsch, the truck returned to the city in 2020 following decades with the Memphis, Tenn. fire department. To return it here, the Park Ridge Historical Society purchased it for $20,000. That truck was taken out of service in 1955, according to prior reporting.
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