Vintage Pictures of 1905 Steam Fire Engine

Morning history. How many pictures exist of the Raleigh Fire Department’s antique 1905 American LaFrance Metropolitan steamer and when the thing was in service? Just two.

Plus a couple of parade pictures from the early 1940s and likely long after it was retired. The sole surviving piece of the city’s horse-drawn apparatus is part of the department’s antique fleet. It was restored to operational functionality in 2012, for the occasion of the department’s centennial anniversary.

Steamer parked beside Station 1 on W. Morgan Street, circa 1912. cropped from larger view, Courtesy North Carolina State Archives, N_53_16_3957

Steamer pulled behind motor hose car at Station 1, circa 1913, cropped from larger view, Courtesy North Carolina State Archives, N_53_16_3958

Steamer in 1940 parade, Courtesy North Carolina State Archives, cropped from slightly larger view, N_75_11_529

Steamer at South Atlantic Fire Rescue Expo in Raleigh in August 2018, Mike Legeros photo.

Builder Plates

And here’s one fun fact. The steamer has manufacturer’s marks for both the American LaFrance Fire Engine Company and its corporate predecessor, the American Fire Engine Company. What, why, how? Because ALF was created a year earlier, as a merger of American and LaFrance (and some others in the mix). And the new company likely continued using old stock of parts until they were gone.

Pictures and Videos

• Here’s a album of pictures of the steamer from our Flickr site, with dozens of present-day pictures.
• Here’s a visual guide to the steamer controls, also on our Flickr site.
• Here are videos of the steamer in action in recent years.

Historical Information

• Raleigh’s steam fire engines (there were two)
• Flyer about Raleigh’s surviving antiques (PDF)
• Histories of Raleigh’s antique apparatus (PDF)
• Registry of all Raleigh rigs, motor-driven and earlier