Fire has played a large part in Aberdeen’s history ever since her earliest days and has altered our city in ways that may not even be perceptible today. From the early bucket brigades that required constant vigilance in the nascent village, to the modern aerial hose trucks that fought the Armory fire on June 9, firefighting equipment has advanced greatly and that is reflected in some of the antique equipment that suffered in the museum fire.

Aberdeen is fortunate to have among the museum’s artifacts three pieces of fire equipment from its earliest day. One is “Old Tiger,” the trusted hand pumper and first major piece of rolling stock to be transported to our young town. Built in Boston in 1855 and brought around the Horn by sailing ship, it slowly made its way up the coast, operating in San Francisco, Portland and Salem, Ore., before the steamer General Miles brought it to Aberdeen in 1888. The first fire it fought here was at Loveless’ saloon at Heron and F Streets. The saloon was saved and the firemen were rewarded a keg of beer for their valiant heroism.

The second piece of equipment is the Metropolitan steam pumper. Purchased in 1902, there was some debate at the time with many on the city council questioning the wisdom of buying a fire pumper with the ability to reach three story-buildings. Aberdeen had only a few such structures at the time, and it was considered unnecessarily large for such a small community. One year later the business district was razed by fire — which began in a three-story building — and while the pumper operated admirably, a lack of water pressure and the massiveness of the conflagration proved too much for the machine.

The most modern piece of equipment is the 1927 Ahrens-Fox pumper truck purchased by the city to replace another machine that had been wrecked months earlier while racing to a massive blaze aboard the City of Nome, a lumber freighter that burned for five days on the Chehalis River. The Ahrens-Fox served the city until 1968 when it was retired and parked in the city garage. In the 1970s, a group of Aberdeen firefighters fully restored it and the Ahrens-Fox was often seen in parades and is one of the jewels of the museum collection.

All of these machines were damaged to varying degrees in the recent fire. “Old Tiger” had quite a bit of wood in its construction and while that burned away, it is hopeful that the remaining metal wasn’t bent or twisted by the heat and it can be rebuilt. One item is likely lost to history, an 1890s hose cart, a spindly-wheeled reel for transporting fire hose, was mostly of wood construction. Until the salvage operations end and each item is assessed, there is really no way to know exactly what can be saved for future generations to enjoy.

Among the hardest hit exhibits was the grand display of stained-glass windows that once graced Aberdeen’s Congregational, Baptist and Methodist churches. The pioneer windows from the old Congregational Church listed the names of Aberdeen’s earliest settlers on either side of a massive window depicting a pioneer wagon cutting through a dense forest with a passage from Psalms 121:1, “I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes Unto The Hills.” All of the church windows, pews, altars and an ancient pump organ were destroyed, as was an altar painting from the Finnish Evangelical Church.

The Grays Harbor Genealogical Society suffered a major loss including thousands of obituaries of area residents, and burial records from the Whiteside and Elerding funeral homes dating back over a century. The Society was located in what was called the “train station,” which was constructed with items salvaged from the old Aberdeen train depot before it was razed in the early 1970s, including the pebble-glass baggage room doors, original ticket window and assorted signs dating back to the days when passenger trains were a daily occurrence. Adjoining the genealogy library was the exhibit depicting local schools. Among those treasures were a hand bell used in Aberdeen’s first school and the sign from the old Washington School in South Aberdeen.

There is some irony that the museum would suffer a blaze as we approach the 115th anniversary of the Great Fire that struck the city on the morning of Oct. 16, 1903. It was the single most destructive fire in our history as 90 percent of the central downtown business core from the Wishkah River to Broadway, and the Chehalis River to Wishkah Street was reduced to ashes in a matter of eight hours and was stopped only by dynamiting houses along Broadway. As a result, the city fathers met the next day, passing ordinances banning the construction of wooden structures within that section of town. Many of the merchants burned out in that fire relocated to the Commercial Block, a block-long wooden building on Market Street between G and H streets. One week later that building caught fire and many merchants were burned out for a second time in 10 days. Aberdeen was rebuilt with the permanence of brick, stone and concrete, eliminating a large amount of risk for the city’s residents.

In July 1908, a blaze destroyed many of the buildings on South F Street that had survived the Great Fire five years earlier, threatened Aberdeen’s red-light district and nearly cost the fire chief his job. There is compelling evidence that this fire may have been ignited under the direction of the notorious Billy Gohl.

The most destructive fire in our recent memory occurred on Jan. 5, 2002, when the J.M. Weatherwax High School, built in 1910, succumbed to an arson fire set by misguided youths. It left a scar on generations of Aberdonians who had walked the hallways of the classic-designed structure. With that building went years of tradition and history that now can only to be found in our collective memories.

The point is, Aberdeen has lost more structures and artifacts to fire than most cities our size, but despite that, the loss of life has been relatively low. Now the museum has suffered a similar fate but through it all, then as now, there is a spirit that has kept our people moving forward. Our people are resilient and steadfast and that can be seen in the way all of Grays Harbor has wrapped its arms around those who suffered in the Armory fire. We will mourn our losses and recover from this setback, and a new museum will eventually be built because Aberdeen — Rising From The Ashes IS WHAT WE DO!

Roy Vataja is the son of Finnish immigrants and has been involved with the museum since 1981. In the aftermath of the Armory fire, one phrase was repeated, “We have lost our history.” No. Our history is written for all time, but it was some of the tangible artifacts that connected us to our collective past that were destroyed. It is now up to us to save what we can and move forward so future generations will know where they came from.