CT Residents Work to Get Back 1939 Fire Apparatus

EAST HAVEN, CT—A faded echo of East Haven’s past — a red 1939 Seagrave fire engine that still says East Haven “Engine Co. 4” on the side — is sitting outdoors down in Alvin, Texas, just waiting to come home.

A group of East Haveners led by Joe Deko — who in addition to being the Town Council chairman is a Guilford firefighter and a vintage fire truck collector — would like nothing better than to bring it back to East Haven.

They’re working to raise money to accomplish the feat, which will be done entirely through private donations.

“Yeah, we’re trying to get the truck home,” said Deko, D-2. “We think it should be home. The truck is intact and ... we think it’s real important that we get that truck back here.”

Over the weekend, Deko created an online Go Fund Me page, which as of Tuesday had raised $1,360 toward a goal of $10,000. Deko said he also had collected about $1,500 in offline donations, giving the effort more than $2,800 so far.

He estimates it will cost $2,400 just to bring the truck, which is not currently running, back on a flatbed from Alvin, 31 miles south of Houston.

“It’s really interesting how this truck surfaced after 50 years,” said Deko, who already owns another former East Haven Fire Department truck that’s quite a bit newer. “The town bought two trucks in 1939. They were twins.”

After 30 years in service — with this truck used by volunteer Engine Co. 4 in the Bradford Manor Firehouse and its twin used by Engine Co. 1 in the Main Street Firehouse — the two were sold at auction in 1969, Deko said.

“The whereabouts of these engines was lost in time until recently,” when “Engine 4 was located in Texas,” Deko said on the Go Fund Me page. It’s “in VERY good condition for being 81 years old,” he wrote.

“We now have an opportunity to bring it back to East Haven,” Deko wrotes. “The only problem is that it’s in Texas! We would love to get this truck back and get it road worthy for all to enjoy in parades and functions around town.”

Deko said Tuesday, “About a year ago, this one surfaced down in Texas,” and while folks here were aware of it, they couldn’t reach an agreement with the then-owner.

It initially was sold to someone else — but that new owner, Jason Barnett, has since had a change in his circumstances and now wants to sell it, Deko said.

He got in touch with East Haven Fire Chief Matthew Marcarelli via Facebook, Deko said.

Marcarelli could not immediately be reached for comment.

Barnett, reached by phone, said he was thrilled at the possibility of the fire truck going back home where it used to operate.

“That’s where it belongs,” Barnett said.

Barnett said he bought the truck a year or so from a friend of his who collects antique fire trucks — and has become known as “Fire Truck Chuck” — when Chuck, who owned it for about 25 years, was moving and downsizing.

“I bought it from Chuck because I was worried that someone was going to buy it and ruin it,” Barnett said. In his neck of the woods, “locals gut ’em and turn ’em into hot rods,” he said.

“I’m very happy of the possibility that it could go back to where it came from,” he said. “It’s an irreplaceable piece of history.”

Prior to Fire Truck Chuck buying it, “I do know it was once used in parades” and fire apparatus musters, “I think in Pennsylvania,” Barnett said.

He said he has offered to sell it to the folks in East Haven for what he paid for it, $4,000, “which is not all that much for a truck with 6,000 miles on it.”

Barnett called it “incredible” that it only has 6,000 miles on it.

Deko said the plan is to give the truck to the East Haven Volunteer Firefighters Association, which he called “the rightful owner.”

“Because it started out as a volunteer” piece of apparatus, “it should go back to the volunteers,” he said. “We would have to find some private storage for it. It could fit in an oversized residential garage.”

Deko said he has reached out to a firefighting museum in Texas that will store the engine for a short period of time until money can be raised and arrangements made.

“Hopefully when we get it back, we can have a little escort and show it off before it goes into storage,” Deko said.

The current owner told Deko that “there was a fire truck collector in Germany who was interested in buying this truck and shipping it to Germany,” but he likes the idea of sending it back where it originally came from, Deko said.

While the effort to buy the truck is a private effort, Mayor Joe Carfora, who ran on the Democratic ticket with Deko in the November election, said he’s behind it all the way.

“I think it’s great,” said Carfora, who shared Deko’s Go Fund Me pitch on his Facebook page. “Joe Deko started up a Go Fund Me page and I think it’s great to bring that old girl back home. ... It completely blows my mind that someone found it way down there.”

Carfora said he first heard about the effort over the weekend, went on Facebook to check it out, saw that Deko was involved and “I called him up and he briefed me.”

The $10,000 fundraising goal is to cover the cost of buying the truck, shipping it back and doing necessary repair work to get it running.

But Barnett said that while the truck does need work, including new tires and brakes, he did get it running at one point using an auxiliary gas can.

“The original fuel tank had soured gas in it,” he said. “It doesn’t need to be fully restored, but it does need a little work.”

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