Chicago's last Spartan Engine

[JoeO]

In 1858 Chicago volunteer company Engine 15 was organized at North ave and Larrabee, it was the last volunteer engine company in the city, as the city was changing over to a paid department. In 1863 this volunteer company was disbanded and replaced with Hose Cart 3, two years later Engine 4 moved into the Fire House. It is believed that the last rig used by the volunteer company “Northern Liberty” Engine 15 is the one displayed at the Chicago Fire Academy.
In 1869 Engine 15 was re-organized at Cermak and May. The area then was a heavily used area for transporting lumber and goods via the river and railroad. A number of lumber yards and numerous wooden buildings were in the Engines district.. Engine 15 responded from the south to the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.
Engine 15 was in service from 1869 until 1932. After the great depression the city had to make budget cuts which caused them to close 3 fire houses, disband 7 engines, and 3 trucks. Engine 15’s fire house was closed and the engine disbanded.
In 1957 a new Fire Commissioner was appointed, Robert Quinn, who worked to modernize and expand the department. A new Fire House was built on the South West side at 80th and Kedzie. Engine 15 was reorganized in 1957 having a large 6 square mile district.
In 1992 the Chicago Fire Department started to replace it aging fleet of 1980’s Ford ‘C’’s with Spartan/Luverne
engines. Overtime Luverne was sold under the name Crimson. In 1993 Engine 15 received one of the first 20 of these built. The Spartan brand would be the main stay of new engines for 30 years. In 2012 the last of the Spartan’s was delivered to Chicago and went in service at Engine 15. In 2016 the city would start to order Engines again and has changed back to E-one again.
Fire Replicas has produced replicas of the 2004 Spartans and the 2017 E-ones, since the real trucks differences over the year’s are minor the models are definitely a great base to start with to create many different CFD’s engines. To honor the last Spartan in that 30 year time frame, I have modified a Fire Replicas Spartan engine to Engine 15, using some parts from the OHare engine and decals from InQuarters. The Fire Replicas Chicago engine models are a pretty simple conversion, so if you want to get a specific CFD engine to customize don’t wait for them to be sold out.
https://www.firereplicas.com/chicago-il/

[CCFR-45]

Sharp truck. Great work.

Thanks for sharing