Wilmot Heritage Fire Brigades and Museum continues to preserve firefighting history for future generations
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
By Galen Simmons
For 31 years, the Wilmot Heritage Fire Brigades and Museum has been quietly preserving the history of firefighting in Wilmot Township and beyond – even if many local residents are only just discovering it exists.
Tucked beside the Baden fire station in a former salt-storage shed, the museum began with a simple idea: if no one saves this history, it will disappear.
That idea came from a small group of former firefighters – seven in total – including Blaine Bechtel, who is being honoured this week with a life membership for his decades of dedication, as well as Orland Gerber, Murray Gingerich, David Herner, Elmer Koenig, Stanley Miller and Larry Nauman.
Peter Gingerich, a former Baden firefighter with 28 years of service, joined the heritage group 29 years ago and now serves as president.
“It’s in your blood,” Peter Gingerich said during a recent interview with the Gazette at the museum. “If we don’t preserve it, we’ll lose it. It’s as simple as that.”
From the beginning, the group’s goal was not just to celebrate Wilmot Township’s fire service, but to tell the broader story of firefighting – how it evolved, how equipment changed and how communities relied on volunteers long before modern emergency services existed.
That story recently took a remarkable turn.
This spring, the museum expects to bring home an original 1948 Ford F155 Bickle-Seagrave pumper that once served the New Hamburg Fire Department. The truck, which still bears New Hamburg and Wilmot Township markings from the era of regional amalgamation, eventually made its way to Alberta after passing through several private owners.
The Alberta collector who purchased it years ago reportedly said the truck should someday return to New Hamburg. After his death, his daughter attempted to track down the New Hamburg fire department only to discover it no longer existed as a standalone entity. Instead, she found the New Hamburg Firefighters Association, which directed her to the Wilmot Heritage Fire Brigades and Museum.
Peter Gingerich responded immediately.
“We aren’t New Hamburg,” he told her, “but we are.”
The museum already holds apparatus from the Baden and New Dundee stations, and with the acquisition of the 1948 pumper, it will have preserved every motorized pump truck ever operated out of the Baden station. The Alberta truck will be transported back to Wilmot in the spring, certified for Ontario roads and added to the collection.
For Peter Gingerich, the truck’s return feels like history coming full circle.
“To us, that truck was long gone,” he said. “To have it come back like this – it’s amazing.”
But the museum is far more than a collection of trucks.
Inside the building, rows of helmets trace the evolution of firefighter safety – from early rubber and metal helmets to fiberglass composites and modern designs with face shields and ear protection. Each helmet tells a story, including the shift away from metal once electrical hazards became more common.
Nearby, early breathing apparatus – including a 1950s-era charcoal-filter system and heavy steel air bottles – highlight how far firefighter safety equipment has progressed. Modern “pass devices,” designed to emit a piercing alarm if a firefighter stops moving, are displayed alongside early models known as “fireflies.”
Other artifacts reveal firefighting’s more human side.
There’s the original bell that once rang to alert Baden residents of a fire; a chief’s trumpet used before the days of two-way radios; a Cold War-era civil defence helmet from a time when communities prepared for the possibility of nuclear attack; and a set of black and white voting balls used decades ago to secretly approve or reject prospective volunteer firefighters.
“If you got a black one, you didn’t make it,” Peter Gingerich explained with a grin.
The museum also houses hand-drawn and horse-drawn pumps dating back to the 19th century, massive rescue nets once held by a dozen firefighters to catch people jumping from upper-storey windows and a 1953 defibrillator that required a metal plate, a sponge and a 110-volt outlet.
Even the trucks themselves reflect shifting trends. Wilmot was once among the first in Waterloo Region to adopt chrome-yellow fire apparatus for improved visibility before eventually returning to traditional red.
Beyond the equipment, the museum preserves something less tangible – family legacy.
In earlier decades, entire families served on the local fire brigades – fathers, sons, brothers and cousins. Peter Gingerich himself is part of a multi-generational firefighting family. Today, as Wilmot’s population grows and newcomers arrive from larger cities, those deep-rooted connections are less common
“That’s why this matters,” he said. “People move here and don’t know the history. This is part of the community.”
The museum operates on donations, monthly can-and-bottle drives and volunteer labour. The building itself was once a township salt shed; the heritage fire brigades installed the floor and hydro. Space remains their biggest challenge. Some apparatus is stored off-site and larger pieces, such as a steam pumper owned by the museum, are on permanent loan elsewhere because there is simply no room.
The dream, Peter Gingerich admits, would be a purpose-built facility large enough to properly display everything – timelines of equipment evolution, full apparatus side by side, artifacts presented in context.
Until then, the Wilmot Heritage Fire Brigades and Museum continues its work – quietly collecting, restoring and preserving pieces of a history that once depended entirely on neighbours stepping up for neighbours.
And this spring, when a 1948 Ford pumper rolls back into Wilmot Township for the first time in decades, it will serve as a powerful reminder that sometimes, history really can find its way home.
The Wilmot Heritage Fire Brigades and Museum is open Wednesdays from 6:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. To arrange free tours of the museum, email wilmotfiremuseum@gmail.com or call or text Peter Gingerich at 519-572-2811.
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