02/04/2026
Check out our spotlight on the Legeros Fire Line page! Thank you, Mike, for honoring the history of our department and the people who have served it. Our history is built on the dedication of many, and we’re grateful for those who help preserve and recognize it. Looking back carries both pride and a quiet sense of bittersweet reflection. We remain humbled by where we’ve been and the legacy that continues forward.
Rockingham County history hit. Looking back at City of Reidsville Fire Department's 1928 American LaFrance quadruple combination service ladder truck from a Greensboro Daily News story on November 1, 1974.
Old Reidsville Fire Truck Being Dismantled
“It’s Sort Of Like Losing A Friend”
By Glenn Mays
Daily News Rockingham Bureau
REIDSVILLE — The gray dust has settled deep over the years. Its tired treads are well-worn; its ladder racks empty. The driver’s seat has been removed as have parts of the engine. The pumping equipment has been taken off too and placed on the floor nearby. Several ladders are stacked on the floor too.
That’s the way it sets now. It’s been there for several years. Its paint has faded too.
“It’s sort of like losing a friend, seeing it go like this. It really was a good piece of equipment.”
F. T. “Nappy” Durham, an assistant chief of the Reidsville Fire Department was talking about a 1928 model American-LaFrance fire truck, now stored in a city warehouse behind the fire department.
“It’s been to a lot of fires,” he recalled. “And I drove it to a lot of them.”
He stood on the running board of the old truck and turned the steering wheel, which was one of the few things still intact on the truck. He stepped down and walked toward the rear of the truck.
“Yeah, it’s sort of like losing a friend,” he said. “It was a good truck and a very valuable piece of equipment for the city.”
Durham recalled that he drove the truck to a major fire that swept through the downtown area in the mid-1930s.
“I don’t remember too much about the fire,” he noted. “But I remember I drove this truck to the fire. The other one was out on a call at the time.”
He recalled that it was very early in the morning when the fire occurred too.
The city bought the truck in 1928 and it was the second motorized fire truck the city owned. It was a combination use truck in that it served as a ladder truck, hose truck and as a pumper too.
“When it was bought, the city paid a dollar a pound for it,” Durham pointed out. “That’s the way you bought fire trucks then.”
Just how much the truck weighed, Durham couldn’t recall but it was several thousand pounds.
“When the city bought it, Frank Trent, who was an engineer with the city, went to Elmira, N.Y., and helped to build it.”
The truck, related Durham, who has been with the fire department since 1933. “When it was finished it came in by train. It was a pretty big thing in town.”
The old truck was taken out of service in August of 1962 when a new serial ladder truck was purchased, although the truck saw its last major fire six years earlier.
“The last major fire she went to was the Smothers Warehouse fire in 1956,” Durham recalled. “But we answered many a call with that truck.”
Many of the parts of the old truck have been removed and will stay with the department, according to fire chief Hilton Monsees.
“We removed several components and they will be used on our 1919 model truck which we still use as a parade vehicle,” Monsees pointed out.
He said the parts for the old trucks have become very hard to find and that it would be almost impossible to repair the old 1928 truck.
“The company had some parts for these old trucks until a few years ago when there was a flood there and all the old parts were ruined,” Monsees added.
He noted that the body of the old truck has rusted out in places and that the engine no longer runs. But he said too, “The energy absorbing bumpers are still intact.”
“I have a lot of memories with that old truck. And seeing it being torn up, it hurts right in here,” Durham said, pointing to his heart. “I hate to see her go.”
After the truck is dismantled, it probably will be sold at auction. But when she is sold, a lot of memories will be with her.
