What’s more, last month was the official
dedication of the city’s Arts and Culture District.
The fire museum’s parking lot is a portion of that
district and has been painted and equipped to
form a children’s park.
The museum itself was formed nearly 20 years
ago with the acquisition of a collection belonging
to Fred Conway, a former volunteer fireman and
fire chief in southwestern Indiana near Evansville.
(Conway formed the company Discount Labels
in New Albany in 1965 to originate the stickers
with the local fire departments’ phone numbers
that became a familiar addition to the cradles of
telephones.)
It took about 15 years of uprootings and
relocations until the Vintage Fire Museum found
its current home. And it has become nationally
popular. This year, it hosted the Fire Museum
Network’s annual meeting. Next summer, it will
host the annual meeting of the Society for the
Preservation and Appreciation of Motorized Fire
Apparatus in America, during which 200 to 300
individual collectors, plus some of their equipment,
will descend on Jeffersonville.
The museum participates in all the holiday
parades in downtown Jeffersonville, and at 11 a.m.
Oct. 13, it will hold its own parade – or “muster,”
as Peters called it – including a truck giving water-
pumping demonstrations at the river. It will also,
beginning in November, experiment with an
outdoor “biergarten” (German for beer garden)
on the museum’s property the first two Saturdays
of the month. “If the experiment works,” said
Curtis, “we’ll make it a permanent feature starting
in the spring.”
Curtis said the likely plan is to build new or to
renovate on nearby property an addition to house
the Dauenhauer collection. “We have no timeline
for completion until we make that decision,” he
said, “but we expect to accomplish quite a bit in
the next 12 months.”
In the meantime, the collection has a home in
the Haunz Building on Haunz Lane in Crestwood,
Kentucky, made available by retired fire chief Carl
Haunz. But the equipment is not simply gathering
dust until its move across the river.
“We’ve opened it up the first Saturday in every
month,” said Mary, “so the public can begin
appreciating what my husband accomplished.”
The Vintage Fire Museum is located at 723 Spring
St. in Jeffersonville. To learn more about the museum
– or donate to the 501c3 entity – call 812.282.4705
or visit vintagefiremuseum.org.
88 EXTOL : OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018