Do You Know About the Tulsa Fire Museum?
The Tulsa Fire Museum, located in the historic Fire Alarm Building at 1010 E. 8th St., is currently open only on select open house dates. The museum is still in the process of raising funds to complete its vision so that they can be open on a regular basis. But thankfully, we saw the information about their monthly open house this past Sunday and were able to make it!
The Historic Fire Alarm Building
The museum is located in a beautiful art deco building that was originally built in the early 1930s as a fire alarm building. Essentially, it was explained to us, an emergency call center. There’s a photo near the entrance that shows what it looked like at the time.
The building was actually in use as a fire alarm center until the early 1980s. After remaining vacant for over a decade, the American Lung Association took it over, renovating it to more what it is like today. We also saw some pictures of how it looked before the ALA took it over – the basement was totally unfinished, with dirt floors; now, this is where they store the majority of the Fire Museum artifacts.
The ALA didn’t operate in the building for very long. Eventually, it was purchased by a private person/entity, who now leases it to the Tulsa Fire Museum at a very reasonable rate.
Learn more about the history of the Fire Alarm Building at tulsafiremuseum.org/about
The Collection
If you’re able to attend an open house, a volunteer should be on-hand to tell you about the museum’s collection. This is definitely helpful, as, because the museum is still a work in progress, a lot of it isn’t labeled.
Next to the front door, you’ll find a toy room, full of vintage fire department-themed toys. As well as Christmas decor (I saw some familiar-looking firefighter nutcrackers!) So don’t miss this if you’re bringing kids! They even had a firefighter costume and plastic hats to try on. (With real firefighter hats in the basement that they let Joss wear, too!).
On the lower level, you’ll find the majority of the collection. This includes hats, uniforms, art and photographs, stretchers, oxygen tanks, etc., etc. And decades’ worth of record books detailing what happened in different fire houses on each day.
The outfit on the left was the uniform for firefighters working at airports. The one on the right is from the 1950s.
Vintage fire extinguishers:
Apparently, firefighters used to only put out house fires if they knew you had fire insurance. So these metal plaques denoted which type of fire insurance you had when placed on the front of your home. I’m glad that’s changed!
“This bell is from Tulsa’s first horse-drawn fire wagon, 1905.” They let Joss pull the string connected to the bell. It’s very loud! Apparently they still use this at Tulsa Polo Club to start matches or something.
Future Plans for the Tulsa Fire Museum
Again, the museum is a work in progress. Here’s a rendering of how they hope it to look in the future:
As you can see, they’re hoping to build out the museum and have a space where you’ll be able to see vintage fire trucks/vehicles. According to their website, “The lower level will be an interactive kid’s area with activities and things to play on. Old hoses will create a climbing wall, and there will be a full fire truck cab they can sit in. It will educate kids not only about fire safety but injury prevention in general.”
Visit their website for a donations button, to purchase merchandise in support of the museum, and to learn about upcoming fundraisers. You can follow them on social media, too: @TulsaFireMuseum. This is how we found out about the open house.
Oklahoma City also has a Firefighters Museum. We haven’t been to that yet, but you can plan a visit at osfa.info/museum/visiting
