Eighty-eight years after the Chehalis Fire Department purchased it and 48 years after it was retired from service, Chehalis Fire Engine 2 is back on the road.
“It’s a big part of our history,” retired Chehalis firefighter Jerry Boes said of the engine.
Purchased new by the Chehalis Fire Department in 1937, the American LaFrance Fire Engine, aptly named Engine 2, was the second motorized engine in the Chehalis Fire Department’s history.
The engine was still in service as the Chehalis Fire Department's third-out engine when Boes joined the department in 1976.
A year later, in 1977, the department received a 1976 American LaFrance class A engine and officially retired the 1937 American LaFrance from service.
It was surplused due to a lack of storage space and ended up as a static display at the Southwest Washington Fairgrounds, Boes recalled.
While the fairgrounds staff was supposed to maintain the engine while it was on display, it sustained significant damage and fell into disrepair, with Chehalis Firefighters Union Local 2510 IAFF formally requesting ownership of the engine in 1980.
The Lewis County Board of Commissioners at the time agreed to transfer ownership of the engine to the firefighters union, and the engine was returned to the Park Street Fire Station in Chehalis.
Engine 2 briefly returned to service in the aftermath of the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980, Boes recalled.
“They actually took it out of the firehouse and started using it to pump, to wash off all of the ash,” Boes said. “And somehow, I don’t know how it happened, who did it, whatever, but one of the fenders got bashed in on it, and my understanding was that they didn’t really know how to operate the pump and stuff. And so, the firemen realized that we really needed to try and rescue this truck.”
When longtime Chehalis Fire Department Captain George Benton died in December 2012 at the age of 94, his estate agreed to help with the restoration of Engine 2.
Former Chehalis police officer Rick Silva and a crew of Chehalis firefighters began working to restore the engine in 2014.
Silva was in the process of reassembling the engine when he died unexpectedly on June 18, 2015, due to complications during a surgery to correct a hip injury sustained during a struggle with a shoplifter who was resisting arrest in February 2015, according to previous Chronicle reporting.
After Silva’s death, the dismantled Engine 2 was returned to the Park Street Fire Station in Chehalis, where it sat untouched for about 10 years, until Chehalis Firefighter Adam Miller briefly moved it out into the street while cleaning out the old station.
“The building is just, you know, kind of falling apart, and (the engine) had some pieces and some sheetrock kind of stuck all over it, and I was like, ‘Hey, we just need to get it out and just kind of pick it up a little bit,” Miller said.
Ray MacDonald, of Olympia Firehouse 5, a nonprofit organization of retired firefighters that work to preserve and restore historic fire equipment, happened to be driving by while Miller was cleaning up Engine 2in the roadway outside the fire station.
“It was just pure coincidence,” Miller said.
Former Chehalis Mayor Pro Tem Daryl Lund, who was also a retired volunteer firefighter and a member of Firehouse 5, also happened to be passing by.
“We got a couple numbers and a couple phone calls were made, and next thing you know, the Firehouse 5 guys came on down and agreed to take a look at it, see if it’s something that they might be able to assist us and put it back together again,” said retired Chehalis firefighter Kevin Curfman. “That’s one thing we’d all decided, is that we didn’t want just anybody to put it together that didn’t know how to.”
MacDonald, Lund and fellow Firehouse 5 member John Jones assessed the project and assembled a work party consisting of Jerry Hall, Dr. John Broan, Ken Morefireld, Aaron Hall, Hudson Hall, Bennett Hall, Craig Halstron and Ryan Cox to complete it.
Miller, Curfman, Steve Emrich and other current and retired Chehalis firefighters also helped with the reassembly.
“It hadn’t run for 10 years. We got it started … and that kind of gave us the boost we really needed,” Boes said.
Olympia-based artist John Hannukaine provided the finishing touches on the restored engine, including the hand-painted gold leaf work and lettering.
“I honestly didn’t think it would ever get put back together, and now to see it like this — this is what it looked like to begin with, originally, when they actually brought this thing here for the first time,” retired Chehalis firefighter Emrich said. “It probably looked just like this.”
“We’re obviously very grateful to the Benton estate for their contribution, and to everybody for their work,” Miller said.
Engine 2 was completed before Lund died unexpectedly from septic shock in December 2024. The engine joined Lund’s funeral procession through downtown Chehalis.
The engine is still stored at the Chehalis Fire Department’s old station in downtown Chehalis and will most likely be entered in upcoming parades and car shows.
“It wasn’t meant for design to be put back together and then put back in a garage. It needs to go out and get seen and spread this word of everything that we’ve done for it,” Miller said.
