Veloy and I happened to be in Provo the day the Centennial steamer fire engine came through town. Originally purchased by the city of Salt Lake in 1902, this breathtaking example of Victorian engineering and design served the city until 1919, at which time it was retired to become a display at Liberty Park for the next five decades.
Over the years it was tarnished and torn by the effects of weather and vandalism, until 1972, when it was rescued by the International Society of the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and placed out of the weather in the basement of the DUP's newly built Carriage House Museum. Another 20 years went by. Then in 1994 the museum's director, Edith Menna, and a dedicated fire engine lover, Brent Palmer, decided to restore it.Dismantled piece by piece and hauled out of the basement, it was taken to the Bountiful City Fire Department, where, as a Utah Statehood Centennial project, extensive restoration work was begun. Over a period of two years, with countless man-hours of loving labor by many people and at a cost of $125,000, the old American LaFrance pumper has regained her original splendor. There are 22,125 individual parts to the old engine, of which over half had to be completely remade. But on June 15 of this year the restoration was completed, and the newly refurbished steamer was dedicated in honor of Utah's firefighters. It is now on a statewide tour as part of local centennial celebrations.
On the day we saw it in Provo, the fire engine was slowly being driven through town on the bed of a specially outfitted semitrailer, accompanied by a fanfare of firemen and a contingent of historical firetrucks filled with local kids. The handsome old steamer, whose hundreds of polished fittings gleamed in the sun, was carefully rolled off the track and set up for a demonstration in the parking lot east of the pioneer museum.
We had to leave for an hour, but by the time we came back, the steamer's caretakers had the firebox stoked up and she was running at full throttle, shooting a broad stream of water across the parking lot, where several dozen kids were rollicking under its cooling spray.
I have often seen pictures of old steamers like this and had never thought much about them, considering them to be fairly ineffectual machines compared to the massive red and yellow fire trucks of today. These old steamers have an almost whimsical shape and a lightness of bearing. I was surprised to learn, however, that this old engine No. 1, which was named the "Roosevelt," weighed over 5 tons and is capable of pumping over a thousand gallons of water a minute!
I watched as the firefighters struggled to keep the portable metal trough from which the pumper guzzled water from hoses hooked up to modern hydrants.
Wok-i-ta, wok-i-ta, wok-i-ta, wok-i-ta . . . the polished cylinders casually danced on their rockers from steam fed in from the boiler nestled above the firebox, where a fireman stoked the fire with a new hunk of coal from time to time.
Psssh, psssh, psssh, psssh . . . tiny wisps of air escaped from the sides of the cylinders. The old steamer was barely straining, yet out on the end of her hose three firemen struggled to keep her nozzle from flipping free.
No wonder that in those old pictures I had seen they were rushing so crazily through the streets (the Roosevelt was pulled by three horses). These old pumpers were not nearly the timid wimps I had pictured them to be. At full power they could strip the wood siding off the top of a three-story building and pop bricks right out of their mortar.
As we were leaving, several members of the Bountiful Fire Department were dragging one of their co-workers - cell phone and all - toward the Roosevelt's watering trough. Two or three other local firemen had already been soaked to the skin as the midday demonstration was slowly turning into an excuse to beat the summer heat.
Out under the Roosevelt's stream, young mothers were now cautiously venturing with their younger children in tow. Small rainbows of mist were popping up here and there in the air around us.
And in the midst of everything, like an old mother hen, Salt Lake's restored Roosevelt, with an almost human air about her, just kept on pumping, as if she were reveling in the celebration - gleaming with pride at this new raft of attention she was receiving, and glad to be in service again after all these years.