Following the Civil War, volunteer brigades were disbanded and a paid fire department was organized.
Three catastrophic fires in the first five years of the 20th century demonstrated the need for the fire department to further expand and modernize, bringing in motorized trucks like the Ahrens-Fox.
Firefighting has come a long way from the leather and metal buckets supplied by homeowners, and the story of the shift to modernization is told at the Heritage Center.
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