November/December 2007
A Dream Is Fulfilled With Fire Museum Opening
By Ed Ballam
Dick Young, involved with the fire service for most of his life, has fulfilled a long-time goal – the opening of a firefighting museum in his hometown of Lancaster, N.Y.
“This is the realization of a dream, and any time you can share that dream with everyone else, it’s just marvelous,” said Young, the president and founder of Performance Advantage Company, which makes fire tool mounting devices.
Young put up a significant chunk of his personal money, as well as a storefront building he owns, to make the museum a reality. Then he put his 1935 Ford pumper in the facility, which is called The Greater Lancaster Museum of Fire Fighting. The museum is dedicated to preserving the heritage of the fire departments in Lancaster, Depew, Twin District, Town Line and Bowmansville, a cluster of villages just east of Buffalo.
The Spark Plug
About five years ago Young became the spark plug in the effort to create a museum. In September, it opened to the public, making it one of an estimated 200 fire museums in the United States and one of 30 in New York state.
An initial step for Young was establishing a not-for-profit organization, the Greater Lancaster Fire Prevention & Safety Organization, and recruiting a 10-person volunteer board of directors. Jerry Enser, a former chief of the Lancaster Fire Department, was selected as the board’s president.
Enser is an employee of Young’s at Performance Advantage, making it convenient for him to coordinate many of the projects and tasks needed for completion of the museum, which is located at the street level storefront of the company’s headquarters.
Honoring Heritage
“I’m involved because I want to honor the heritage of fire service in my family,” said Enser. “In my family alone we have more than 400 years of community service. My grandfather, my father, three uncles, my cousins, my two brothers and my two sons were, or are, firefighters. And, my wife, my mom, my mother-in-law, and aunts are all on the ladies auxiliary. Growing up, I didn’t know there was anything outside in the world except for the fire service.”
One common link among the directors is having family in the fire service or direct service to the community. In fact, the board itself has become an extended family, united by the museum.
Ray David is a board member, as well as a 40-year member of the Twin District Fire Department in the southern part of Lancaster. David said his father and grandfathers were founding members of a neighboring fire company. “Through this museum,” he said, “we want young people to see what we had in the past and see what we’re doing now and maybe they’ll become interested in joining us.”
50 Years and 3 Books
Another board member, Arthur Domino, who is marking his 50th year as a member of the Depew Fire Department, has written three books about fire department history in Lancaster, and many of the artifacts and exhibits in the museum came from his collection. “I cleaned out my house,” he said.
The items in the museum range from uniform patches, convention ribbons and badges, many more than 100 years old, to alarm systems, helmets, brass nozzles and ancient radio equipment.
A highlight of the collection is a display of early Scott Aviation drawings and equipment. Scott Aviation, a predecessor of the modern Scott Health and Safety, was founded in Lancaster.
Young said his father, Lester, worked with Earl Scott, the founder of Scott Aviation who had a business partner named Howard Benzel, who held dozens of patents. About two weeks before the museum opened, Benzel’s grandson brought in some original Scott drawings and products, and Young and the board were delighted to receive them. The photos, blueprints and the early Scott AirPak are prominently displayed.
Young Fire Equipment Co.
“Lancaster has been blessed having Scott here,” Young said. “There’s still a lot of the family and the original people are still here in Lancaster.”
Young, who is 77, has been part of the fire service for his entire life, having grown up building fire apparatus in a business started by his father. The Young Fire Equipment Company, which was founded in 1932 in Lancaster and closed in 1991, was known as a leader in innovation with three designs unique to the family name.
In 1993, Young bought the building in which the museum is located and started making tool mounting equipment for apparatus. Performance Advantage products are in service around the world.
The new museum has two pieces of apparatus in addition to Young’s 1935 Ford – a hand-drawn hose cart from the Lancaster Felt Company and the Lancaster Fire Department’s original hand tub.
‘First-Class’ Fire Hall Look
The motorized apparatus is parked in front of the double doors of the museum, which has the façade of and early 1900s fire station.
Young said he and the board wanted the museum to look like a “first-class old fire hall.” It cost $250,000 to do it, and Young contributed $125,000 of that amount. The Lancaster Industrial Development Agency matched his contribution.
“We’re all so very proud of the building,” Young said. “We’ve created something and built it just like the old days. The fire companies of old had creative people who put their own money and time into making things happen, and that’s what we have here.”
In addition to keeping memories of Lancaster’s firefighting glory days alive, the museum has a mission to educate students about fire safety and fire prevention. A significant portion of the museum’s floor space is dedicated to teaching.
The Educational Element
Ann Enser, Jerry Enser’s wife, is vice president of the museum’s board of directors and was attracted to the project because of the educational element. The Ensers have three children; two sons are firefighters, and their daughter is a middle school student.
“Basically, I did this for the kids,” Ann Enser said. “Our plan is to get school groups in here, Boy Scouts and other young people in here for programs.”
The museum is running on a small endowment and accepts donations from visitors who make free-will contributions by dropping donations into a fire boot. Memorial and honorary bricks can also be purchased and installed on the sidewalk in front of the museum for $100, and that has proven to be a successful fundraising activity, said Jerry Enser.
At the time of the museum’s opening the organization was mortgage and debt free with operating funds in the bank, according to Young.
The Lancaster group seems to have all the ingredients to succeed, according to Tom McDonald, president of the Fire Museum Network, a nationwide not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping museums collect, preserve and interpret the artifacts, history and traditions of the fire service.
McDonald, who is also a member of the board of trustees of the Houston Fire Museum, said the network was started 18 years ago, originally affiliated with the International Association of Fire Chiefs. About three years ago, the network amicably separated from the IAFC and has been a self-sufficient organization since.
“Starting a fire museum can be a huge challenge, but usually one that can be met if enough commitment is available from those who seek to do so,” McDonald said. “Money also helps, a lot.”
The number of fire museums grows each year, and old fire stations are popular locations for them.
“It is very hard to say exactly how many fire museums there are in the U.S., but it is certainly upwards of 200 actual museums that are currently standing and, to some degree, open to the public,” McDonald said. “It seems to me that starting a fire museum has become extremely popular, especially over the past decade.”
Some fire museums are family-run and exist on private property and are only open by appointment or to friends. Some are open year-round with paid staff and large facilities. McDonald said there are also some museums, in name only, that consist of a collection of artifacts in someone’s home.
“So,” he said, “you can see a true number is elusive.”
A significant mission of the Fire Museum Network is to unify all those different entities and provide them with minimum standards and a means to connect and share ideas.
In addition to offering resources on its Web site, www.firemuseumnetwork.org, McDonald said the organization hosts annual seminars – this year in Denver and next year in Aurora, Ill., the home of a very fine fire museum.
“I have been part of the organization for all of the 18 years, and the best part of my experience has been watching first-time [seminar] attendees come with only an idea and a commitment to build a fire museum and, then, 10 years later, it’s there,” McDonald said. “Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was a case in point.”
Young and the other founders of The Greater Lancaster Museum of Fire Fighting are proud to have joined the ranks of other fire museums in the nation.
“The fire service is made up of a unique bunch of giving people,” Young said, “and we have this building and this museum to prove it.”
The Greater Lancaster Museum of Fire Fighting can be found at 6 West Main St., Lancaster, N.Y. It is open from 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturdays; and 12 to 4 p.m. on Sundays.