Wednesday, September 21, 2016

"Jumbo" the 13-ton, 24-foot long 1899 fire engine,


The city of Hartford CT purchased one of the earliest self-propelled stream fire engines in 1899 from the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company of Manchester, New Hampshire. The engine was nick-named Jumbo due to its extreme size and capacity. Apparently, Amoskeag built 22 of these giant engines (used in places like Boston and New York), however Jumbo is the only one of it’s kind known to survive.

Engine No3 (Jumbo) had been decommissioned by 1937. It next shows up in the 1950s in the collection of James Melton.

As with much of Melton’s collection, Winthrop Rockefeller purchased Jumbo. From there it went to the Jameson Collection (in CT) and was consigned in 2003 to the Bonhams auction at the Larz Anderson Museum.

http://jamesmeltonmusicalcareerantiquecars.blogspot.com/
http://vintagemotoring.blogspot.com/2012/08/hartford-engine-no3-known-as-jumbo.html

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