Near South Memory: Firetruck Collision in 1956

Letter to the editor, The Near South Neighbor

Saturday afternoon December 15th, 1956, I was eight years old. I was accompanying my older brother, Tom, who was 13, we were collecting from customers of his Lincoln Star newspaper route. We were standing near the intersection 16th and A streets when we heard sirens. As we watched we could see two fire trucks, one headed south on 16th Street, another east on A Street.  It was obvious that they were   on a collision course.  There was nothing we could do!

Tom grabbed me by the collar of my coat and dragged me up on a front porch.  The fire trucks collided. In those days firefighters clung to the sides of the trucks. According to the Sunday Journal-Star the next day, one firefighter suffered a broken leg, another was knocked unconscious, and four others were injured. The two fire trucks were out of commission. One truck caught fire. Firefighters took a hose from the other truck, connected it to a fire hydrant and extinguished the fire. In those pre-radio days, there was a call box on the southwest corner of 17th and A Streets which they used to call the fire station and report the situation. According to the Sunday newspaper the wrecked trucks were from the fire station at 13th and F streets. Two other trucks were dispatched. One from the fire station at 18th and Q and another from the fire station at 23rd and O streets. I remember these trucks being antiques (the ones wrecked where 1940s models) these old timey trucks stopped by the accident scene, picked up the firemen that could still function and proceeded to the fire which was it 1711 A Street.

 Later I picked up a small piece of chrome I found in one of the yards and I still have it. A reminder of a terrifying afternoon.

 James E. Young

The firetrucks in the collision would have looked like this.

A story about the crash appeared in the Lincoln Journal Star the following day.

The rest of the story.