Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 12, 1992 TAG: 9202120102
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: GLASGOW LENGTH: Long
ONE-OF-A-KIND OLD FIREFIGHTER BRINGS GAWKERS INTO GLASGOW
This little Rockbridge County town doesn't seem like much of a tourist attraction. Obviously, you don't know about Glasgow's fire station - and its prize fire truck.
Sometimes, when the weather is pretty, James McFadden just likes to sit on the benches outside the firehouse and watch.
Watch what?
The tourists.
"It's right interesting just to be setting there on the bench and see somebody go down the road and then come back," the fire chief says.
He always knows what they're coming back for: to take a look around the firehouse, of course.
"That building seems to attract attention for some reason," McFadden says. "Some go next door and ask Daryl Cash if they can come in and take pictures of the engines."
So how often does that happen?
Cash, who runs Cash's Automotive, doesn't have to think long. "Usually have a couple every week."
Some are just ordinary tourists who happen to be passing by, taking the scenic route between Natural Bridge and Lynchburg through the James River Gap, and can't help but notice the firehouse out of the corner of their eye.
The afternoon sun glints off the 10 silver trophies standing in the picture window. Inside, a hundred or so more - won in parades as far away as Richmond and Winchester - line the shelves.
Lots of rural fire departments are proud of their parade trophies, but not many make a point of putting them in the window for all to see.
So folks stop and want to look around.
"We're in a small town and we're on the main drag and we're more or less an eye-catcher," says Cash, who's been a volunteer for six years.
A quaint rural firehouse is a big allure.
Glasgow's volunteer firefighters are more than happy to show off their trucks to wide-eyed kids and their parents. "We're pretty proud of what we've got," McFadden says. "A lot of hard work has gone into it. We don't mind showing it off at all."
Many visitors, though, tend to be other firefighters, who make a special point of stopping by Glasgow while they're cruising down Interstate 81 or the Blue Ridge Parkway on vacations or business trips or whatnot.
They come from all over.
"Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina," McFadden says, ticking off the guest list. "And we get quite a few visitors from Norfolk, Chesapeake, Hampton. . . . People come by and say `so-and-so told us you had some interesting stuff.' It's just word-of-mouth."
So what does a tiny (28 members) volunteer fire department tucked back in a corner of Rockbridge County possess that sets folks talking in other states?
McFadden leads a visitor into the back bay.
A squat, shiny truck, with the distinctive curves fashionable in the '50s, crouches on the cement floor like a big metallic cat, ready to roll.
It's a one-of-a-kind ladder-and-pumper truck - a 1956 Dodge chassis, outfitted with a pumper body and a Memco ladder by the old Oren Co. in Salem.
"The company built only six or seven total with a Memco ladder," McFadden says. "All the rest are either destroyed or junked and this is the only one left in existence. And this was the only one with a Dodge chassis, the rest were Ford or Chevy."
These are details that mean little to the general public, but prompt trivia-minded firefighters to gawk.
"We pride ourselves in having that," McFadden says.
Naturally, there's a story behind the truck, though no one's quite sure what it is. "Garvis Downey was the chief then and there wasn't a ladder truck in Rockbridge County, none at all, and for reasons questionable to a lot of people, Garvis Downey and the Glasgow Fire Department decided they wanted a ladder truck," McFadden says. "They had some people in the department at the time that didn't agree with it."
Glasgow's ladder truck soon became a topic of conversation far and wide. Not too many small-town fire companies had ladder trucks back then, so when "high-rise" fires broke out, they always seemed to call on Glasgow.
"When it was fairly new, they got a call one Fourth of July and took it all the way to Bedford for a fire," says McFadden, whose father was chief before him. "My daddy took it there. He used to like to drive it. He took it to Buchanan one time to a major fire. It's been to Buena Vista several times to fires they've had, and it's been to Lexington several times. It was at the Natural Bridge Hotel fire in '64 . . . "
But where the truck became most famous was creeping down small-town Main Streets on display in the summertime.
When the Glasgow Fire Department first started winning parades in the early '60s - at places around Rockbridge like Fairfield, Kerrs Creek, Effinger - this was the truck that brought those trophies home. A rarity like a ladder truck, especially one with a unique industrial pedigree, was almost sure to win something.
"Now, it's retired," McFadden says. "It's done its job. Now it's resting. All we do now is look at it."
Twice a year, though, during Glasgow's annual July carnival and its Christmas parade, the firefighters will take the old ladder truck out for a spin around town.
"We don't like to take it too far," McFadden cautions. But folks around Glasgow sure get a thrill out of seeing the old truck that others come from miles around to view.
"Yeah," McFadden says, soft and slow, the way folks speak when they're really proud of something, "they like to see it."