A 1924 Sterling fire truck, manufactured by Peter Pirsch & Sons Co. of Kenosha that served the Jefferson Fire Department for 44 years arrived home Tuesday, Oct. 31. The department won the truck in an auction with a bid of $8,500. Above, firefighter and “ace mechanic” Nick Drew steers the truck as it’s unloaded into the Jefferson Fire Department apparatus bay. Meanwhile, the Fort Atkinson Fire Department unveiled its newest fire truck, paid for with combined funds from the City of Fort Atkinson and towns of Hebron, Jefferson, Koshkonong, Oakland and Sumner.
The Jefferson Fire Department successfully bid on a 1924 Sterling fire truck that was in service at the department for 44 years. It was up for auction at VanDerBrink Auctions LLC in Lawton, Okla., on Oct. 21. Jefferson won with an $8,500 bid. The truck was delivered on Tuesday, Oct. 31. Here, “ace mechanic” Nick Drew closes the hood after checking the engine.
The Jefferson Fire Department successfully bid on a 1924 Sterling fire truck that was in service at the department for 44 years. It was up for auction at VanDerBrink Auctions LLC in Lawton, Okla., on Oct. 21. Jefferson won with an $8,500 bid. The truck was delivered on Tuesday, Oct. 31. Members of the Jefferson Fire Department, along with City Administrator Tim Freitag and city engineer/Public Works director Bill Pinnow, celebrate their successful bid on the fire truck.
The Jefferson Fire Department successfully bid on a 1924 Sterling fire truck that was in service at the department for 44 years. It was up for auction at VanDerBrink Auctions LLC in Lawton, Okla., on Oct. 21. Jefferson won with an $8,500 bid. The truck was delivered on Tuesday, Oct. 31. Here, the vehicle sits in the apparatus bay in the Jefferson Fire Department.
A 1924 Sterling fire truck, manufactured by Peter Pirsch & Sons Co. of Kenosha that served the Jefferson Fire Department for 44 years arrived home Tuesday, Oct. 31. The department won the truck in an auction with a bid of $8,500. Above, firefighter and “ace mechanic” Nick Drew steers the truck as it’s unloaded into the Jefferson Fire Department apparatus bay. Meanwhile, the Fort Atkinson Fire Department unveiled its newest fire truck, paid for with combined funds from the City of Fort Atkinson and towns of Hebron, Jefferson, Koshkonong, Oakland and Sumner.
The Jefferson Fire Department successfully bid on a 1924 Sterling fire truck that was in service at the department for 44 years. It was up for auction at VanDerBrink Auctions LLC in Lawton, Okla., on Oct. 21. Jefferson won with an $8,500 bid. The truck was delivered on Tuesday, Oct. 31. Here, “ace mechanic” Nick Drew closes the hood after checking the engine.
The Jefferson Fire Department successfully bid on a 1924 Sterling fire truck that was in service at the department for 44 years. It was up for auction at VanDerBrink Auctions LLC in Lawton, Okla., on Oct. 21. Jefferson won with an $8,500 bid. The truck was delivered on Tuesday, Oct. 31. Members of the Jefferson Fire Department, along with City Administrator Tim Freitag and city engineer/Public Works director Bill Pinnow, celebrate their successful bid on the fire truck.
The Jefferson Fire Department successfully bid on a 1924 Sterling fire truck that was in service at the department for 44 years. It was up for auction at VanDerBrink Auctions LLC in Lawton, Okla., on Oct. 21. Jefferson won with an $8,500 bid. The truck was delivered on Tuesday, Oct. 31. Here, the vehicle sits in the apparatus bay in the Jefferson Fire Department.
JEFFERSON — “The new Sterling hook and ladder truck of the Jefferson Fire Department arrived Monday. It is one of the best equipped in the state and it should give good service.”
So reads the Thursday, May 22, 1924, edition of The Jefferson Banner.
On Tuesday, Oct. 31, the same fire truck was backed into the Jefferson Fire Department apparatus bay … almost 50 years after it had left.
The antique vehicle went on auction on Saturday, Oct. 21, at VanDerBrink Auctions LLC in Lawton, Okla., as part of the John Lewis Collection. The Jefferson Fire Department was able to secure it with an $8,500 bid courtesy of a loan from the City of Jefferson.
“Since being awarded the truck, Yvette VanDerBrink (owner of VanDerBrink Auctions LLC) has reached out to me twice in two separate emails,” Jefferson Fire Chief Ron Wegner said. “The first one was to tell me, the second one, to me, was kind of to drive the point home: … this is an extremely rare piece and there may not be another one.
“She knows the world of antique autos,” he added. “She also indicated in her emails that there was a very strong fire museum presence at this auction and that she needs me to understand that this vehicle may be a one-of-a-kind. This truck is worth more than we paid for it, to the collector.”
Jefferson Fire Department officials first became aware of the auction on Oct. 10, when Alex Moore, one of VanDerBrink’s staff, contacted them on Facebook.
“As they were preparing for the auction, he sees ‘Jefferson, Wis.’ on the hood of the truck, he does a Google search, finds our Facebook page and he reaches out to us on Facebook,” Wegner explained. “He said, ‘We think we have a truck that belongs to you, a 1924 Sterling.’ I think there were a total of 19 photos he sent to us of the truck sitting there in the building.”
When he received the message, Wegner called Jefferson EMS director Sue Reinen and asked her to go into his office to take a picture of a picture he knew was there. The picture happened to be that of a 1924 Jefferson fire truck as it came off the production line.
“As soon as I saw the picture she sent to me, I knew that was our truck,” Wegner said. “Then I asked Bruce Whitmore, our recording secretary, to go back into our files, into our archives. We have a ton of history here and we have all of the monthly meeting minutes going back to 1922.”
What Whitmore found were several letters between John Lewis and Wegner’s father, former Jefferson Fire Chief Donald “Choc” Wegner, regarding the truck.
“So my dad knew where this truck was, but nobody else did, but it was in our files,” Wegner noted.
The letters weren’t the only thing found in the archives, though.
It was during the Dec. 4, 1923, meeting of the Jefferson Common Council when the Committee on Police and Fire Department was authorized to confer with Rescue Hook and Ladder Co. to help decide on the right “motor driven hook and ladder apparatus” for the City of Jefferson. The committee also was authorized to prepare specifications and advertise and receive bids for the furnishing of the truck at a total cost not to exceed $5,000.
To put the price in perspective, when the Jefferson Fire Department purchased a 2016 engine in January 2016, the total cost — split among the city and towns receiving fire-suppression services — was about $550,000.
On March 4, 1924, the Committee on Police and Fire Department reported 19 bids from 11 different companies to the council.
“After very thorough and careful consideration, we have concluded that the Sterling Motor Truck bid in the sum of $5,850 is the most suitable apparatus for the particular needs of our city,” the committee said, according to minutes from the meeting.
The truck was manufactured by Peter Pirsch & Sons Co. of Kenosha. The specifications sheet is dated March 11, 1924.
Two months later, the completed truck was stamped with the date May 10, 1924, and it was sent on its way to Jefferson.
According to the May 22, 1924, edition of The Jefferson Banner, the truck arrived on Monday, May 19 (see photo on A5).
The Jefferson Banner’s photo caption lists some of the accompanying equipment: “It is equipped with one 50-foot and one 40-foot extension ladder and single ladders of the following lengths: 28 feet, 25 feet, 24 feet, 20 feet, two 16 foot, and one 12 foot. There is a pull-down hook with chain, rope and pole, hose shutoff and door opener, two three-gallon fire extinguishers, crowbars, fire axes, pike poles, crotch and lifting poles, wall pick, shovels, wire cutter, pitch forks, tin roof cutter, lanterns, special bell and siren horn, search light, 40-gallon chemical tank, 200-foot chemical hose and nozzle, necessary wrenches, etc.”
In 1954, a Chevrolet cab was purchased and mounted on the ladder box.
The Sterling truck remained in service in Jefferson through 1968, when the department purchased an 85-foot aerial truck.
Wegner explained that the belief is that the vehicle was sent to a salvage yard in Hustisford after it was decommissioned. From there, it came into the possession of Roy J. Meissner, of Merton.
“Roy Meissner advertised this truck for sale in a newspaper in some type of an auto-shopper in March of 1987,” Wegner said. “We now have the original ad. That’s where John Lewis learned of it.”
The ad was in “Wheels of Time” and the cost was listed as $1,000.
According to a series of letters between Meissner and John Lewis, the truck was stowed in Meissner’s garage and was used as a “storage vehicle.”
Over a period of about two weeks, Lewis and Meissner discussed the sale of the truck. On April 11, 1987, Meissner signed the bill of sale, verifying that he had received Lewis’ check for the requested amount.
“From what I understand about this John Lewis is he was a fairly wealthy man, he owned a company, he was a car buff and a bit of an eccentric,” Wegner said. “He amassed quite a collection of antique vehicles. He had an affinity for Rolls Royces, but he had a little bit of anything and everything, including quite a few antique fire apparatus. I don’t know the exact number of vehicles, but I believe there were several-hundred in his collection.”
The collection was displayed in the Lewis Fire, Transportation and Farm Museum in Lawton, Okla. Lewis established the free, private museum with his wife, Jane, in 1986.
Lewis had the fire truck transported by Junior and Liz Coley to Lawton, Okla., where he and Raymond Jett restored it, according to a packet of records mailed to Wegner.
In September 1987, once the truck had been at least partially restored, Lewis reached out to the Jefferson Fire Department for more information. Choc responded.
Through the letters, Wegner discovered that there still were pieces of the 1924 fire truck at the station.
The 40- and 50-foot ladders? They’re hanging on the west wall of the Jefferson Fire Department apparatus bay. Also, the bell that hung on the front of the truck likely is the one that’s mounted on the front of Ladder 12, the department’s current aerial vehicle (see photos on page A5).
In turn, Lewis talked about the restoration he had done.
“We found new headlights, bell was found in Florida and we made the bell rack,” Lewis wrote. “We found siren and fire extinguishers plus other things. The tail light and spotlight was in place.
“The battery box was rusted away, so we saved the lid and about three inches down and renewed the rest,” he continued. “The toolbox was rusted away only two inches, so we only cut it off and made new wooden bottom. New steel rear portion was made by Superior Steel.”
Also made were a new steering wheel and gas and spark levers, according to the letters. The floor was put in high so all the undercarriage could be seen.
In 1988, Lewis purchased period-appropriate ladders from Terry Hill at Independent Hose Company No. 1 in Mount Vernon, Wash., for a total of $525.92, including shipping and a ladder tension bracket.
In one of the letters, dated Aug. 22, 1990, Lewis explained that he had built an additional building for the museum and Jefferson’s truck was “the center attraction in that building.”
Wegner said the department began talking to Moore about what needed to be done to acquire the truck in the Oct. 21 auction.
On Tuesday, Oct. 17, the chief went before the Jefferson Common Council to talk about bidding on the vehicle.
He explained that, in order to do a live bid, representatives would have to be present at the auction and that the paperwork to do a live telephone bid was due the previous Friday. Because the day of the auction coincided with the Harry Potter Festival USA weekend, the chief was unable to attend the auction in person.
The only alternative was to put a maximum bid on the VanDerBrink Auction website. The catch was, Jefferson Fire Department needed approval from the council to spend the funds.
That night, the council authorized a loan of $10,000 for a bid and $3,000 for transporting the truck home, should Jefferson “win.”
“I was then contacted by Bob Cattelino, the owner of Top Notch Auto, which is an antique auto dealership on Highway 26 just south of Jefferson,” Wegner said. “He called and offered to pay for the transportation. Bob deals in the world of antique autos and has contacts.
“He coordinated and paid for the transportation to have the truck brought back here from Oklahoma in exchange for us being able to use the additional $3,000 that was allocated by the council toward the bid,” the chief continued. “(City Administrator) Tim Freitag approved that, said, ‘This guy’s going to take care of that; we can take care of this.’”
So that Saturday, Jefferson placed a maximum bid of $13,500, with the extra $500 coming from Wegner himself.
“That day, we continued to watch online as the auction went throughout the day,” Wegner said. “It was about 1:30 p.m. when it got to our vehicle. There were about 14 of us shoved into the (front office), all huddled around the computer — including Tim Freitag and Bill Pinnow — and we were watching (the bidding numbers) live.”
As they were watching, Capt. Kip Kopelke, who originally had had contact with Moore, took two pictures. The first was from the back of the room of and the second from the front window. Both showed the group “huddling over the laptop” watching the bidding. He texted Moore the pictures.
Soon after, the bidding stopped.
“Here’s where the story kind of switches gears,” Wegner said. “We just know that he texts the photos. The bidding stops, we’re watching it and nothing’s happening and then we’re awarded the winning bid.
“The office erupts,” he continued. “Everybody’s jumping up and down in here going crazy and going, ‘OK, now how do we get it here?’ So everyone’s all excited that we’re awarded the truck.”
Around 3:30 p.m. that day, a man who had attended the auction called the fire station.
According to the man, he was standing next to Jefferson’s truck when Moore stopped the auction to announce to the attendees that “Jefferson was on the phone and they wanted to bring their truck home.”
Moore apparently explained that a Jefferson representative was unable to be present because of a large festival in town, but that the department was bidding online and currently were on the phone.
“Somebody in the crowd, we don’t know who, started a chant, ‘Send it home!’ and the bidding stopped and we were awarded the truck,” Wegner explained. “We do know that there were others that were interested in this truck and, I think, quite frankly, they got blackmailed by whoever was chanting in the crowd.”
It was between 3:30 and 4 p.m. on Oct. 31 that the 1924 Sterling fire truck arrived at the Jefferson Fire Department.
“My ace mechanic, Nick (Drew), said that, if it wasn’t seized up, he’d have it running in 48 hours,” Wegner said. “I received a text at 11:15 that night that it was running.”
Drew, a firefighter, has taken on the truck as his pet project, the chief said.
“To this point, Nick has been working feverishly,” Wegner noted. “It did not have any electrical wiring, so the lights did not work. The siren did not work; there were no wires to them. Since then, Nick has rewired the truck, so the lights now work, the siren works, the switches all work. He’s been driving it around town as he continues to work on finetuning the engine.”
At some point, the wheels — which are cold-formed rubber on wooden rims and original to the vehicle — are going to have to be redone, he said.
“We have found a place in South Dakota that does that type of work yet, but they have to physically have a wheel to give us an estimate,” Wegner said. “We know that’s going to have to be a future thing we have to have done if we want to drive it around.”
One such driving goal is to have Santa Claus ride in it during the Parade of Lights, which takes place Saturday, Dec. 2.
Also during the parade, firefighters will be wearing bright yellow jackets and passing a boot to help raise funds to pay back the $10,000 loan from the city.
To date, Jefferson has $9,200 invested in the truck. That includes the bid, $8,500; the bidder’s fee, $250; and about $500 so far in miscellaneous items to restore it.
The department currently is seeking donations to help repay the loan and help with restoration of the vehicle. The goal is $10,000 to start. So far, $4,750 has been raised from 13 donors.
“We really do need donations to help us bring this piece of Jefferson history back,” Wegner stressed. “It’s unique that it’s fire history, but it may be the only one of its kind left, period, of that (time) period. So it is a piece of fire history, in addition to a piece of Jefferson fire history.”
A tax-deductible donor-advised account has been set up at the Jefferson Community Foundation. It’s called The Jefferson Fire Department Historical Preservation Fund. In order for a donation to be tax-deductible, it must be addressed to the Jefferson Community Foundation with Jefferson Fire Department in the notation.
Donations can be sent to the Jefferson Community Foundation at P.O. Box 81, Jefferson, WI, 53549. Or, checks can be sent to the Jefferson Fire Department, which will take care of delivering them to the foundation, at 351 E. Racine St., Jefferson, WI, 53549.
Otherwise, non-tax-deductible donations can be made directly to the Jefferson Fire Department.
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