Coachbult.com - Ahrens-Fox Fire Engine Co.



C.Ahrens & Co. 1868-1891 - American Fire Engine Co. 1891-???? Ahrens-Fox Fire Engine Co -1911-1953 - Cincinnati, Ohio (C.D. Beck 1953-1956 - Sydney, Ohio)

On March 2, 1852, a failed Cincinnati locksmith named Abel Shawk, a moderately successful but highly-eccentric railroad locomotive builder named Alexander Bonner "Moses" Latta, and a succesful iron-foundry owner named Miles Greenwood, polled their talents and their separate corporations to jointly unveil the world's first successful steam-powered fire engine. The demonstration was so successful, that the City of Cincinnati contracted with the inventors to build a steam fire engine for them. Shawk's quick-steaming boiler, which could raise water in under 10 minutes, made the steam fire engine practical, while Latta lent his locomotive expertise to the steam engine, pump, and chasis.

Shawk and Latta, along with Latta's brothers Edmnundson and Finlay Latta, formed the A.B. & E. Latta "Buckeye Works" to build this steam fire engine. Built in Greenwood's foundry, it was named the Uncle Joe Ross after the city councilman who had championed the steam fire engine's introduction. The world's first fully-paid and professionally-trained fire department was established in Cincinnati to man it, with city councilman and former volunteer firefighter Miles Greenwood replacing volunteer fire chief R.G. Bray as the city's first professional fire chief. The engine proved so popular that in 1854, the citizens of Cincinnati raised the funds to buy a second Latta & Shawk steam fire engine, aptly named Citizen's Gift.

Latta and Shawk had a young German-born apprentice working in their steam fire engine factory. His name was Chris Ahrens. When the steam fire engine business was sold in 1863 to Lane & Bodley, a local machine shop, Chris Ahrens became L&B's superintendent of fire engine construction. Five years later in 1868, Chris Ahrens bought out the Latta fire engine business, renaming it C. Ahrens & Co.

About 1891 Ahrens merged with Clapp & Jones (1862-1891) of Hudson, NY, Silsby (1845-1891)of Seneca Falls, NY and Button of Waterford, NY (1834-1891) to form the American Fire Engine Co.

"Ahrens-Fox fire engines were manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, from 1852 to 1977. From 1869 to 1903, Ahrens steam fire engines outsold all but two other brands of steam fire engines in the U.S.: Silsby (Seneca Falls, NY) and Amoskeag (Manchester, NH). From 1915 to 1939, Ahrens-Fox was the third-largest selling motor fire apparatus make in the U.S., after American-LaFrance (Elmira, NY) and Seagrave (Columbus, OH), with the fire engine division of Mack Trucks (Allentown, PA) finishing a very close fourth.

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Ahrens-Fox Fire Engine Co., Cincinnati, Ohio 1911-1953 & C.D. Beck Co., Sidney, Ohio 1953-1956

This company was formed by John P. Ahrens whose family had built horse-drawn steam pumpers since 1868, and Charles H. Fox, assistant chief of Cincinnati Fire Department. Their first motor fire engine to be delivered was completed in 1911 and sold to Rockford, Illinois Fire Department in January 1912. Powered by an 80hp 6cylinder Herschell-Spillman engine, it had a 2-cylinder pumper with an output of 750gpm. It was followed by eleven similar models in 1912, thirteen in 1913 and eleven in 1914. The last Ahrens-Fox steamer, powered by an electric front-wheel-drive unit, left the factory in 1912. In mid-1914 the Herschell-Spillman engine was replaced by a slightly larger monobloc six built by Ahrens-Fox, and up to 1927 their own make of engine was used in all their fire engines. In 1915 the Model A was replaced by the Model M which employed a new 4-cylinder double acting pump mounted ahead of the engine. This was surmounted by a spherical brass air chamber which became the hallmark of Ahrens-Fox pumpers until 1951. The brass sphere was beaten out by hand, and it was said that only one employee knew the secret of its construction. When he died his secret died with him, and a new design of two-piece forged steel ball was worked out.

Although the pumpers were the best-known Ahrens- Fox products, the company also built tractors to pull horse-drawn ladder trucks, articulated aerial ladder trucks with tiller to steer the rear wheels, chemical engines and hose trucks. Most of the specialized equipment was furnished by Peter Pirsch of Kenosha, Wisconsin. Other pioneer features included double banking of ladders, an aerial ladder hoist powered by a small engine-driven compressor, and a hydrant-thawing device consisting of a small boiler attached to the exhaust manifold. In 1917 an Ahrens-Fox was the first pumper to drive water over the then tallest building in the world, the 60 story Woolworth Building in New York City.

6-cylinder pumps were introduced on the 1915/17 Model L and the 1921/30 Model P, the latter having a capacity of 1300gpm. Up to 1920 all Ahrens-Fox machines had chain drive, but shaft drive was optional from that year onwards, and had become universal a few years later. Continental engines were introduced on the 1927 chemical trucks, and by the mid-1930s alternatives to the Ahrens-Fox engines were Hercules or Waukesha units. As well as the famous piston pumps, Ahrens- Fox developed a line of smaller rotary pumpers, and these were mounted on other chassis such as Ford, Dodge, Studebaker and Republic as well as on Ahrens-Fox chassis. Because of the Depression, production shrank to very few units during the years 1931 to 1936, when the company merged with another Cincinnati firm, the Le Blond-Schacht Truck Company. This arrangement continued until 1951 when a Cincinnati businessman, Walter Walkenhorst, purchased Ahrens-Fox. Under his management the famous piston pumpers with the steel ball were discontinued as they were becoming obsolete. The last was delivered to Tarrytown, N.Y. in late 1951. A year later Walkenhorst sold Ahrens-Fox to the C.D. Beck Company, manufacturers of buses; production of fire engines was transferred to Beck's Sidney, Ohio plant, while sales and service remained in Cincinnati. The Beck-built Ahrens-Fox followed previous design of conventional centrifugal pumpers, and in 1956 a new line of cab-forwards appeared powered by Continental or Waukesha engines. In 1956 Beck was purchased by Mack who, adopting the Ahrens-Fox forward cab for their own line of fire engines, discontinued the Ahrens- Fox. Total production of Ahrens-Fox chassis over 45 years was not much more than 900 units. Of these, about 200 were still in service early in 1975. Mack fire engines were made at the Sidney plant for a few years before being concentrated at the main factory at Allentown, Pa. In 1961 all assets, machinery, parts and patterns of Ahrens-Fox were acquired by a former employee, Richard C. Nepper, who services and repairs existing fire engines and also builds fire apparatus on commercial chassis. Production of the latter is very slow as Nepper has only one part-time helper, and currently runs at one fire engine every five years. GNG

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Ahrens-Fox fire engines were manufactured in Cincinnati, Ohio, from 1852 to 1977. From 1869 to 1903, Ahrens steam fire engines outsold all but two other brands of steam fire engines in the U.S.: Silsby (Seneca Falls, NY) and Amoskeag (Manchester, NH). From 1915 to 1939, Ahrens-Fox was the third-largest selling motor fire apparatus make in the U.S., after American-LaFrance (Elmira, NY) and Seagrave (Columbus, OH), with the fire engine division of Mack Trucks (Allentown, PA) finishing a very close fourth.

Although usually ranked third in sales volume, Ahrens-Fox was generally first in innovation and performance. In fact, the company began by introducing one of the most profound innovations in world fire service history: replacing volunteer firefighters who operated manually-powered fire engines, with paid and trained professional firefighters operating mechanically-powered fire engines.

Shawk and Latta, along with Latta's brothers Edmnundson and Finlay Latta, formed the A.B. & E. Latta "Buckeye Works" to build this steam fire engine. Built in Greenwood's foundry, it was named the Uncle Joe Ross after the city councilman who had championed the steam fire engine's introduction. The world's first fully-paid and professionally-trained fire department was established in Cincinnati to man it, with city councilman and former volunteer firefighter Miles Greenwood replacing volunteer fire chief R.G. Bray as the city's first professional fire chief. The engine proved so popular that in 1854, the citizens of Cincinnati raised the funds to buy a second Latta & Shawk steam fire engine, aptly named Citizen's Gift.

Latta and Shawk had a young German-born apprentice working in their steam fire engine factory. His name was Chris Ahrens. When the steam fire engine business was sold in 1863 to Lane & Bodley, a local machine shop, Chris Ahrens became L&B's superintendent of fire engine construction. Five years later, Chris Ahrens bought out the Latta fire engine business, renaming it C. Ahrens & Co.

All of Latta's steam fire engines had been built with square boilers, horizontal piston pumps, and three wheels. These engines were known as "click" style. But in 1870, Chris Ahrens introduced a new style of steam fire engine, called the "upright". It was mounted on four wood or iron wheels, with a round boiler that could raise steam from cold water in 5 minutes (half the time of the old Shawk boiler), and a one or two cylinder vertical piston pump.

In 1877, Ahrens renamed his growing company Ahrens Manufacturing Company. By 1903, Ahrens Upright steam fire engines held every world's record for steam fire engine performance: fastest steam, fastest water, greatest flow in gallons per minute, highest pump pressure attained, furthest and highest distance for fire streams, and longest time operating without a mechnical failure. When one of these records was broken, it was another Ahrens engine that set the new record.

In 1887, Ahrens was the first to introduce gasoline power to the fire service, attaching a gasoline-powered pre-heater to the boiler, to generate steam even faster. St, Paul, MN, put this Ahrens steam-gasoline fire engine in service just one year after Daimler and Benz independently unveiled the world's first gasoline-powered automobiles in Germany.

In 1891, Ahrens Manufacturing Company merged with three of its biggest competitors, Silsby (Seneca Falls, NY), Button (Waterford, NY), and Clapp & Jones (Hudson, NY), to form American Fire Engine Company. Chris Ahrens' son-in-law, Charles Hust Fox, left his position as Assistant Chief of the Cincinnati Fire Department to join the Ahrens firm at that time. Among Mr. Fox's innovations were the Fox Vertical Waer Tube boiler, which could raise steam from cold water in 3 minutes, and the "Columbian" steamer, the world's first pumper to carry its own hose supply (until Fox's 1893 invention, a steamer required a separate hose wagon to carry its hose load). In 1902, Fox helped develop the world's first gasoline-powered fire engine, a salvage car on Winton autombile chassis, with body built at Thomas Hanauer Bicycle Shop of Cincinnati, for the Underwiters Salvage Corps of Cincinnati.

In 1900, the same financiers who owned American Fire Engine Company, assembled a second conglomerate of fire engine manufacturers (including LaFrance Fire Engine Company of Elmira, NY), and named this new firm International Fire Engine Company. On October 1, 1903, the directors of American and International proposed merging those two companies, and the merger was completed in early 1904. The new company was dubbed American-LaFrance Fire Engine Company, and headquartered at the old LaFrance plant in Elmira, NY.

Chris Ahrens, his bother Peter Ahrens, his sons G. Fred and John P. Ahrens, and his sons-in-law Charles H. Fox and George W. Krapp, did not much like the new "fire engine trust" because it was run by bankers and lawyers, not by seasoned fire engine manufacturers like themselves. So they began making plans to separate their company from the American-LaFrance conglomerate. After a protracted and uphill court battle, the Ahrens family was able to reorganize their company in the summer of 1905, as Ahrens Fire Engine Company.

The Ahrens family's new type of steam fire engine, the "Continental" was again third in sales, after the American-LaFrance "Metropolitan" (which, ironically, Chris Ahrens and Charles H. Fox had developed), and the Nott "Universal". But like Ahrens' earlier "Upright" engines, the Continental quickly garnered every world's record, delivering the highest gallons per minute, the greatest pressure, pumping through the longest stretch of hose lines, and shooting streams further and higher than any other make of steamer of the day.

Ahrens Fire Engine Company reorganized on August 9, 1910, as Ahrens-Fox Fire Engine Company. Charles H. Fox was president, his brother-in-law John P. Ahrens was vice president, and another brother-in-law, George W. Krapp, was treasurer. Ahrens-Fox introduced its first gasoline-propelled fire engine in 1911. The familiar front-mount piston pumper (with the spherical air chamber out front) followed three years later, and continued in production until 1952.

In 1913, Ahrens introduced its first rotary pumper, but rotary pumps did not become a standard part of the Ahrens-Fox product line until 1927, with centrifugal pumpers following in 1935. These "booster pumpers" were mounted on commercial truck chassis built by Republic Motor Company of Hamilton, OH.

In 1923, Ahrens-Fox perfected the air-hoist aerial ladder, originally developed in 1902 by Fire Chief Edward F. Dahill of New Bedford, MA, a close personal friend of Charles H. Fox. The air hoist raised an aerial ladder faster and more efficently than the spring hoists common in those days, and a better aerial hoist would not appear until Seagrave and Pirsch unveiled their hydraulic hoists in the mid 1930s. Also in 1923, Ahrens-Fox unveiled the double-banked ladder rank, which allowed ladders to be stacked side-by-side, lowering a ladder truck's center of gravity, and reducing the risk of overturning when negotiating tight street corners.

Another Ahrens-Fox innovation that is now taken for granted in the fire service around the world was the booster tank (1913), which was faster to deliver water than soda-and-acid chemical tanks, and eliminated the need for firefighters to handle dangerous sulphuric acid bottles. The booster tank made triple-combination pumpers (pump, hose, and booster tank) practical, and the first such triple was a 1916 Ahrens-Fox for Carlisle, PA. Adding Ahrens-Fox's double-banked ladder racks to the triple combination made possible the world's first Qaudruple Combination fire engine, or "quad," which Ahrens-Fox completed in 1927 and sold to Walpole, MA, in 1928. Miraculously, both the first triple and the first quad survive today in the hands of private collectors of antique fire engines.

Ahrens-Fox Company was hard-hit by the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent decade-long economic depression. In 1939, the Ahrens-Fox Company was sold to Harold LeBlond of Cincinnati. The company ceased production in March, 1940, and under a new name, Ahrens-Fox Corporation, turned to making lathes for boring holes in battleship guns during WW II. But A-F reopened its doors in 1946, following the end of World War II. Everything got off to such a promising start, that by 1948 the company had a huge backlog of fire engine orders, and to clear this backlog, Harold LeBlond did not accept any new fire engine sales for the entire year of 1949.

This proved to be a big mistake, as rumors of the company's demise were rampant in 1949, making it nearly impossible to regain sales momentum in 1950. In 1951, Harold LeBlond sold the Ahrens-Fox Corporation name to one Jim Jordan, who in turn sold it to the Tousignaut family of Englewood, CO. In the 1980s, Scott Tousignaut built lighting trailers for construction sites under the Ahrens-Fox Corporation name. The Ahrens-Fox Company name, on the other hand, and all of the fire engine company's tools, machinery, and sales and service records, went to Walter "Duke" Walkenhorst Jr., a Cincinnati GMC truck dealer whose father once worked for Ahrens-Fox. By 1953, the company was awash in red ink, and C.D. Beck & Company of Sidney, Ohio (manufacturer of intercity buses) was contracted to build the final 25 Ahrens-Fox fire engines then on order. The very last fire engine built by Ahrens-Fox personnel in Ahrens-Fox's own factory, before the Beck sub-contract took effect, was delivered on Christmas Eve, 1953, to Volunteer Fire Company #1 of New Milford, NJ. This historic pumper now belongs to the webmaster of this web site.

Curt Nepper, Ahrens-Fox's Chief Engineer, bought what was left of the company in 1953, including the Ahrens-Fox Company name, and he continued to supply Ahrens-Fox parts and service to fire departments around the world for another 37 years. He even built two more Ahrens-Fox fire engines: one on International Harvester chassis in 1956 for Miami Township, Ohio, and one on Ford C tilt-cab chassis in 1977 for Southern Campbell Volunteer Fire Department of Alexandria, KY.

In 1970, a group of six enthusiasts of Ahrens-Fox fire engines organized the Ahrens-Fox Fire Buffs' Association (AFFBA) to preserve the surviving examples of this make, as well as the long and colorful history of the Ahrens-Fox Company. These 6 AFFBA founders were Ed Hass (webmaster of this site, and now owner of 1953 Ahrens-Fox pumper #9160), Bob Ward (then owner of 1927 Ahrens-Fox pumper #1683), Jim Murray (then owner of 1939 Ahrens-Fox pumper #3456), Lynn Fledderjohn (then owner of 1918 Ahrens-Fox pumper #683), John Orner (who later owned three Ahrens-Fox fire engines), and Ahrens-Fox Company owner Curt Nepper. Sadly, three of these six AFFBA founders (Lynn Fledderjohn, Curt Nepper, and John Orner) have passed away.

Since 1990, the Ahrens-Fox Company name, along with the remaining parts inventory, and the manufacturing and service records, of the Ahrens-Fox Company have belonged to Ken Menke of Websters Grove, MO. Menke owns half a dozen classic Ahrens-Fox fire engines, ranging in age from 1877 to 1950. Officially, Menke is the sole owner of the Ahrens-Fox Company. But unoficially, the company now has several separate, unaffiliated owners.

The sales and service records of Ahrens-Fox's New York, Chicago, and New England sales offices now belong to the webmaster, and these documents form the basis for much of the content of this web site. Ed Hass also owns all of the special repair-service tools and equipment of Ahrens-Fox's New York office.

The entire spare parts inventory of Ahrens-Fox's New York office now belongs to John Koho of Phoenix, AZ, owner of two Ahrens-Fox fire engines. The parts inventory and tooling from three of Ahrens-Fox's long-time key suppliers (Buckeye lights and signals, Grether lanterns, and Larkin brass) now belong to Bill Darrow of Xenia, OH, owner of 10 Ahrens-Fox fire engines, who makes various reproduction Ahrens-Fox parts both from the original Buckeye and Grether molds, and from patterns he makes using parts off of his own fleet of Ahrens-Fox fire engines. All of this makes Bill Darrow as much a part owner of the Ahrens-Fox tradition as anyone else.

It seems ironic that the #3 fire engine builder in America has come full circle, beginning 150 years ago with just three men who were each an independent company unto themselves (Miles Greenwood, Abel Shawk, and Alexander Latta), and after 75 years as a leader in sales, performance, and innovation, the corporate remains are once more in the hands of just a few men who have no official corporate connection with one another (Ken Menke, Ed Hass, John Koho, and Bill Darrow).

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For more information please read:

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Ed Hass - Ahrens-Fox: The Rolls Royce of Fire Engines

Ed Hass - The Dean of Steam Fire Engine Builders

John M. Peckham - Fighting fire with fire: A pictorial volume of steam fire-fighting apparatus

William T. King - History of the American Steam Fire-Engine

Walter M.P. McCall & George H. Dammann - American Fire Engines Since 1900

Fred W. Crismon - Fire Engines

Phil DaCosta - One Hundred Years of America's Fire Fighting Apparatus

Bob Dubbert - Encyclopedia of Canadian Fire Apparatus

Donal M. Baird - A Canadian History of Fire Engines