The borough of South Williamsport has been blessed with fire protection through volunteer firefighters for almost 150 years. One local man celebrates that proud heritage through his own makeshift fire museum, located in the area of Lincoln Avenue and Matthews Boulevard near Second Avenue.
It almost seems natural that Al Ginoble, the man who organized this informal museum, would be the one to do something like this.
He was raised in a house that served as the firehouse for Citizens No. 2 Fire Company in South Williamsport from the late 1800s to 1909, so it didn’t seem like a stretch that he would develop a passion for the fire service and firemen.
At age 18, he became an active firefighter for Citizens and served as an active company member for many years. He developed many warm friendships with members of the company as well as other area fire companies and, at the same time, gained a keen appreciation for the history and lore of this area’s fire companies.
“Firefighting and the history of it locally is a real passion of mine,” Ginoble told Webb Weekly. “So, I decided about 20 years ago to devote half of a garage I own on Lincoln Avenue here in South Side to putting all the memorabilia I had collected into display cases. I have a lot of stuff, so I needed the space in my garage. It has kind of turned into a kind of a museum.
“The majority of the museum is geared toward local fire company memorabilia, but I also researched and took movies and videos of what’s going on around Williamsport and South Williamsport, such as the demolitions of notable structures and businesses such as the Market Street Bridge, L.L. Stearns, and other places.”
I was able to visit this museum about 15 years ago and did a previous story on it for Webb Weekly, and since then, Ginoble has acquired many more items for it.
With the Citizens Company going out of existence, the need to preserve the legacy of the company became greater, and it also added opportunities for Ginoble to acquire more artifacts for his museum. Some of them were provided by retired members of the company or family members or even by members of other companies.
Walking into his fire company museum, one can’t help but be amazed at his dedication to preserving the history of both volunteer and paid firefighters.
Ginoble said firefighters who worked at fire stations from nearby communities have come to view his collection and to reminisce about their experiences when fighting fires.
He said the inventory of items at his museum has increased over the years. Some of it was donated because of a love for firefighting and a quest to preserve that heritage, and some of it came just because someone wanted to get rid of it.
There are items such as old helmets, other pieces of equipment, a fire bell that was on the wall at the station, various trophies, photographs, and newspaper clippings about the fire service. It is a cornucopia of living history for those who love the history and lore of the fire service through the years.
Ginoble said many present-day and former firemen from throughout the area have stopped by to perhaps drink in a little nostalgia and reminisce about their own dedicated fire service to the public.
There are even some non-fire-related items in the museum that can evoke a sense of nostalgia.
Among his non-fire items is a speaker from L.L. Stearns, a couple of bricks from the store, and a baseball cap from the WMPT radio station. He also has within it, vintage photographs of the old Hurr’s Dairy and some of its horse-drawn delivery wagons as well as its old trucks, the old Humpty Dumpty, and the old Dixie Barbecue, just to name a few.
Ginoble said he was able to gather some of these items from the demolition site of some of these structures during his time working with Williamsport’s Department of Parks and Recreation, which he retired from in 1996.
Ginoble jokingly calls his museum “Albie’s Fire Company Museum.”
“This is not a museum in the formal sense but is just a place where I can keep a lot of items from a former time and display the fire memorabilia that I care so much about,” Ginoble said. “Sometimes some retired firemen and some current firemen will stop by here and have coffee and just shoot the breeze, and I get a lot of pleasure out of hearing their stories about the old days.”
Ginoble thinks that he will probably have to acquire some more display cases to exhibit his items, but going into his museum is almost like stepping back in time and helps you appreciate the past as well as the present.
