Miranda Pederson/Daily News The Bowling Green Fire Department restored this Seagrave 1931 fire truck that sits on display in the lobby of BGFD headquarters.

A bright red early-model fire truck gleams in the lobby of the Bowling Green Fire Department headquarters, even when the sun isn’t shining on it. “Bowling Green, KY” is emblazoned in yellow on both sides, and the number two is circled in a yellow ring below the windshield.

The back of the truck, showing similarities to an oversized pickup truck, is wooden, and an aged black and yellow firefighter’s uniform hangs from a ladder attached to the side.

A sign on the floor beside the truck indicates that BGFD purchased it in April 1931. It was restored between October 2008 to October 2009. Although there aren’t any current BGFD firefighters who remember the truck in action, some former firefighters in the area do.

Granville Davis of Bowling Green worked for BGFD from 1951 to 1971. When Davis began working, BGFD’s only station was on 10th Avenue. Davis hadn’t planned to be a firefighter, but BGFD needed some more men, and another firefighter suggested him for the job.

When he started working for BGFD, the truck was almost retired because it was so old, and Davis remembers taking it out on a few runs.

“Old No. 2 had a personality of her own,” Davis said, laughing.

The fire truck’s brakes were a hassle and pretty unpredictable, he said.

“Every time you put the brake on, your best guess to where it would drive would usually be wrong,” Davis said.

Davis also recalled how low the tailboard was to the ground and how much it jutted out from the back wheels, which made for a jarring ride.

“All the rookies were introduced to No. 2: Ride the tailboard,” Davis said. “Back in those days, we had what they called dewies, dips. The city engineer, when he paved every intersection, the center kept building up. … And old No. 2, when you went through one of them and you were riding on the tailboard, it would pitch you four feet in the air, even at a slow speed. …

“Everybody knew where we were when you hit that dip,” Davis said.

Because of the erratic brakes, No. 2 trained drivers as well as passengers, Davis said.

One day, Davis took it upon himself to do something about the brakes when No. 2 was on standby in the substation Davis was working in.

“(The firefighters) were hoping we didn’t have to make a run because nobody wanted to drive it,” Davis said.

Davis said he approached his captain and asked if the captain cared if he worked on the brakes.

“He said, ‘You know what to do?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I know what to do. … I’m a country boy. I grew up with mechanical brakes out on the farm trucks, and I know what to do to it,’ ” Davis said.

Davis asked the captain not to tell anyone he had worked on the brakes. The captain promised not to tell and agreed to help Davis.

“I got the brakes all adjusted and said, ‘Let’s go for a ride,’ ” Davis said.

With Davis driving, he, the captain and two other firefighters got to the end of the road where they could only turn left or right and would have to put the brakes on.

“I was going faster than I really intended to, but I put the brakes on, and it just sat down and stopped, perfectly straight,” Davis said.

When he stopped, Davis said the captain looked at him and the two firefighters on the tailboard started clapping.

Davis said some of his superiors weren’t too happy with him for fixing the truck by himself.

“If you could’ve gotten fired for doing something good, I could’ve gotten fired for working on the brakes on the truck, because it didn’t go well up at the top with the guy who was supposed to know what to do to it,” Davis said, laughing.

But the firefighters didn’t share that sentiment.

“They were happy that it wasn’t going to pitch them off,” Davis said.

During his first years with BGFD, the department had the No. 1 and No. 2 trucks and one ladder truck. Davis took No. 1 on its last run. When Davis started working with the department, there was still “evidence” of horse-drawn trucks, but those artifacts weren’t preserved.

“Esprit de corps of the fire department was pretty low back in those days,” Davis said of why some of the history wasn’t preserved.

Harry Grider of Bowling Green worked for BGFD from 1960 to 1989 and drove No. 2 a couple times and in the Christmas parade.

Though it was before he was hired, Grider always heard about how the unpredictable brakes had malfunctioned once when someone was driving No. 2 up College Street and couldn’t turn. The truck went right up the steps of Cherry Hall.

The truck held 250 gallons of water, Grider said. Most modern firetrucks hold about 1,000 gallons.

The retirement of No. 2 was just one example of the evolution of BGFD, Grider said.

“It’s a totally different department now from what it used to be,” Grider said. 

More required training and improved equipment have made BGFD firefighters stronger over the years.

“There’s a lot of changes in the fire department, and they’re all for the better,” Grider said.

Davis said he knows firefighters have had to adapt to changes in Bowling Green as well.

“We used to say all the firemen knew all the shingles on all the houses. That’s how small Bowling Green was,” Davis said.

But some things never change.

“Fundamentally, the guys who work for the department now aren’t different from the guys who worked here in 1931,” Chief Greg Johnson said. “They still respond to an event that is probably somebody’s worse day.”

Even with a shimmering red, Depression-era truck parked in the lobby, Johnson said an artifact’s purpose is not just to remind firefighters of a technologically different time period. It’s because of former firefighters like Davis and Grider that the truck is an important fixture in the station.

“It’s not so much a way of connecting to the past as it is a way of connecting to the people from the past,” Johnson said.

— Follow police and crime beat reporter Monica Spees on Twitter at twitter.com/BGDNcrime or visit bgdailynews.com.