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Cheney Fire Station
 The Fire Museum is located at 230 Pine St., at the corner of Pine St.
and Hartford Rd. It occupies a historic fire station, built in 1901 to
serve the Cheney Silk Mill complex and the surrounding neighborhoods.
The museum is operated by The Connecticut Firemen’s Historical Society,
a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and displaying the
history of firefighting in America with a special emphasis on
Connecticut.
The museum was established in 1979 and now includes many types of
fire fighting apparatus, from early hand drawn hose reels to horse drawn
equipment to a 1921 Ahrens Fox pumper. Other displays show early rope
nets to catch jumpers from high rise buildings, leather water buckets
used by volunteer bucket brigades, helmets and uniforms, a unique badge
collection, and models of modern and antique fire trucks. There are
still horseshoe marks on the floor from the time when the ladder and
pumper equipment was pulled by horses.
The latest exhibit is the 1911 Hartford Water Tower, one of only a
very few still in existence. The Water Tower was originally horse drawn,
but in 1914 the Hartford Fire Dept. motorized it by adding a
gasoline-electric tractor in place of the horses. The mast on the Tower
is 55 feet high and is spring raised. The Tower has been completely
restored and is once again in operating condition.
The museum is open mid-April to mid-November on Saturday and
Sunday. For additional information, call (860) 649-9436, or visit
www.thefiremuseum.org.
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