By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
It’s been 95 years since the Hays Fire Department bought its first motorized fire truck, but for those who saw the fully restored 1921 REO Speedwagon over the weekend in Hays, it might not have seemed so long ago.
The fully restored vehicle was brought to Hays by Brad Corley, retired captain in the Wichita Falls, Texas, fire department and president Wichita Falls Fire and Police museum, who purchased the vehicle while in the process of searching for a fire truck for the Wichita Falls Firefighter’s museum.
“About four years ago, our museum had the opportunity to go to a private museum in Lawton, Oklahoma. While we were there, we were offered a couple of fire trucks,” Corley said.
They had 14 trucks, and while looking for a truck for the museum, he bought the REO for his own collection.
Little did Corley know Richard Shubert, a retired member of the Hays Fire Department, had been searching for the truck for over 30 years.
“Never could find it. It found me actually,” Shubert said.
He said he felt relieved after Corley contacted him while searching for the history of the truck after his long search.
After writing the history of the HFD and finding other original trucks from the department, the REO remained missing. Shubert followed the purchase history through several Kansas fire departments, until it was bought by someone in Oklahoma through a cash sale and the trail ran cold.
Traveling several times through Oklahoma, stopping at fire museums through the state, he thought maybe the truck had been lost to history, as many from that era had been destroyed in the war effort of World War II.
But the truck escaped the fate of many others and not only was the truck spared, it had been brought back to life through an intensive restoration.
In 1985, the owner fully restored the truck, one of the few examples still in existence from the era.
“One of the things that makes this rare is that it has its original engine and original frame. Everything’s original,” Corley said.
He estimated there are only five left in the country, and the Hays truck is in the second best condition.
While the previous owner had diligently worked to restore the truck to its original condition, a few details, including paint on the truck, are slightly different than when it was used in Hays.
The truck had been hand painted in a process that took months to complete.
“It makes it unique, but it doesn’t make it exactly as it came from the factory,” Corley said.
After Corley purchased the truck, he spent over two years again working to get the truck in running condition, including rewiring the truck and searched for its original department.
“When you buy a truck, you want all the history you can find,” he said, “but that history is what makes the trucks special.
“The department, the guys that rode it, the fires it went to, it’s your history and Hays’ history was missing one part.”
Now that history is complete as Shubert has located the original trucks from the department, including the first equipment, a hand-pulled fire cart nicknamed the Prairie Bell.
That cart, however, is in a precarious location — buried by the city in a pit behind the city shop, likely after the REO was purchased, Shubert said.
“We’ve got all of the trucks, except the Prairie Bell,” he said.
Sharing the historic truck was important for Corley and the full restoration was a treat for Shubert and Tim Detrixhe, president of Hays Firemen’s Relief Association.
“To have this where they came come touch it and see it means a lot for the community,” Corley said.
“It’s a muesum piece. It’s beautiful,” Detrixhe said. “The work and the love that’s gone into rebuilding this truck is amazing. The attention to detail and the care that Brad and the people that have gone before him have put into this truck over the years to make it that, in 2016, a 1921 truck runs like a top.”
While finding the truck in such good condition was a surprise, he said, maintaining equipment is a part of the firefighter’s ethos.
“Theses trucks are like an extension of ourselves in a way. Without our trucks, we can’t do our job and, without us, they can’t do their job,” Detrixhe said. “It speaks to the firefighters’ nature about preserving things and keeping them in top working order.”