STOCKTON: 1948 firetruck is focus of Saturday fundraising show

By John Tredrea, Special Writer
   STOCKTON — A classic car show that is expected to raise money for the restoration of a 1948 firetruck, which the Stockton Fire Company plans to roll out for parades and other special events, will be held at the Stockton Firehouse on Saturday (Oct. 13) from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.
   The firehouse is at 9 Mill St. in Stockton Borough. There will be vendor demonstrations at the car show. Soup will be available for purchase by the quart for takeout.
   Stockton Fire Company Secretary Jim Kuhn, who has been a member of the company for 40 years, said the car show will be among the fundraisers the fire company will hold to pay for the restoration of the 1948 Ward LaFrance pumper truck the company took out of service years ago and recently reacquired.
   In Mr. Kuhn’s early years as a Stockton firefighter, the Ward LaFrance rig saw a great deal of use. Because the average useful life of a firetruck is about 20 years, the truck was taken out of service years ago and sold.
   ”That truck went through a series of private owners,” Mr. Kuhn said. “Finally, the last owner called us not long ago and said: ‘Hey, I have your fire truck!’”
   The company got the truck back soon after that.
   ”That truck was our primary apparatus for a long time,” Mr. Kuhn said. “It has a lot of emotional pride for those of us who used it. I remember the last time I rode on it very clearly.”
   The company wants to house the truck in a proposed two-bay addition to the firehouse. The other bay would hold a boat and trailer the company acquired this summer for water rescue operations,
   According to a website, the “Ward LaFrance Truck Corporation was an American manufacturer of trucks and fire apparatus, founded by Addison Ward LaFrance in 1916 in Elmira Heights, New York. The company ceased operations in 1979. LaFrance was a relative of the founder of the similarly named fire apparatus manufacturer, American LaFrance. Ward LaFrance built tank wreckers for the U.S. military, vans for United Parcel Service, over-the-road tractors, cement trucks, dump trucks, chassis for buses and trolleys and armored cars. Perhaps the best known Ward LaFrance product was the P-80 ‘Ambassador’ model of pumper, which was used as the fictional Los Angeles County Fire Department Engine 51 on the 1970s television program, ‘Emergency.’”
   MR. KUHN is a member of the company’s board of trustees, which is in charge of the addition project.
   A formal application for permission to build it is expected to be on the agenda of the Stockton Planning Board this month.
   He said the pole barn addition would cost $100,000 to build. “The fire company will take out a loan for it,” Mr. Kuhn said.
   The company has lined up the firm, Kistler Buildings, of Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, to build the addition.
   ”What we want to do is put up a pole barn, 40 feet long by 30 feet wide, that would be attached to the engine bay of the firehouse,” Mr. Kuhn said.
   ”There would be two bays in the pole barn, which would bring us to having five complete bays. We hope to have it up by this winter. If we get our Planning Board approval, we should be able to make that. It’ll take about six weeks to put the pole barn up.”
   Since Stockton is so close to the Delaware River, Mr. Kuhn said, “we decided it was time for us to get involved in river rescue operations.
   ”We’ve done five or six of them so far since we acquired the boat this summer. We’ve been storing the boat and trailer outside, and that’s not a very good place for that. Having the addition would allow us to house it properly, indoors and out of the weather.”
   The all-volunteer Stockton Fire Company is 104 years old.
   To find out how to enter the car show or for other information about the company, call 609-397-2144. The company also has a website: www.stocktonfireco.org.