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The first photo shows the American LaFrance/Ford Model-T Type A chemical fire engine with Las Cruces firefighters circa 1915.
By Levi Gwaltney
Source: Las Cruces Fire (via Facebook)
Photos: Courtesy
In 1926, Metro Goldwyn Meyer/United Artists released “The Fire Brigade”, a silent film pitting a young firefighter against a corrupt developer and politician whose building contracts led to fiery disasters. The producers committed 25% of the receipts from the film toward a college for the training of fire-fighting officers.
The movie became colloquially known as, simply, Fire! The romanticized view portrayed in the film reverberated throughout the nation.
April 14 was National Fire Service Day. The Las Cruces Fire Department showed in pictures the difference 110 years has made.
The first photo shows the American LaFrance/Ford Model-T Type A chemical fire engine with Las Cruces firefighters circa 1915. The second photo was taken 110 years later, on April 14, 2025, with the same 1915 fire engine and current LCFD firefighters in front of Fire Station 3.
On Monday, Dec. 4, 2023, Jean and Wes Melo and the Melo Living Trust, of Roseburg, Oregon, gifted the 1915 Ford Model-T back to the Las Cruces Fire Department. Wes Melo worked nine years to meticulously restore the apparatus to its original state. He cared for the apparatus for 24 years before gifting it back to the original owner, the Las Cruces Fire Department.
