Bringing history to life

George Busho would be proud.

As the city of Ellendale celebrates 125 years with a grand parade on June 28, his great-grandson, Logan Busho, will represent  both the city and the family.

You’ll find him driving a 1939 International fire truck – Ellendale’s first pumper truck.

“They bought it new at the International dealer in Ellendale,” Logan said. “It was the second truck the department ever had.”

The first, he said, was a Model T.

“They called it a chemical cart,” Logan said. “It didn’t have any water on it,” just chemicals used to douse flames, similar to a fire extinguisher.

The story of how he came to own the 86-year-old truck is one of tradition and trust.

Family of firefighters

George and Logan Busho are the bookends of four generations of Ellendale firefighters; George remains the longest-serving chief of the EFD, at 19 years. Logan has spent the last seven years as chief.

In between, George’s sons Robert and Waylen Sr. served on the department – Robert as chief, Waylen as his assistant chief.

Waylen Jr., Logan’s father, was also a firefighter, serving as an assistant chief.

Though George Busho was not chief when the 1939 truck was purchased for $1,975, “he was chief for quite a while while that truck was in service,” his great-grandson said.

The truck

According to a 1940 newspaper clipping, the truck “is generally recognized as the last word in modern equipment for fighting fires efficiently.”

It carried 250 gallons of water, “an ample supply of fire hose, nozzles, ladders, extinguishers, searchlights, lanterns, axes and other tools.”

By comparison, today’s grass rig – a pickup used to navigate ditches and fields for grass fires – carries about 300 gallons of water. EFD’s large tanker carries 5,000 gallons.

The department bought the truck bare, Logan Busho said, then drove it to Luverne to have the fire body put on. That round trip was about 320 miles; the truck today “still only has 2,000 miles on it,” he said.

But that “modern” truck eventually was phased out as larger trucks – and larger fires – became the rule.

Busho’s father kept the truck running into the 1980s; Logan has a photo of his toddler brother playing in the truck.

The truck was eventually sold to Jeff Johnson, who worked at Curt’s Truck and Diesel Service in Owatonna. He stored the truck there, Busho said.

By 2005, the old truck and a 1956 GMC truck the Ellendale Fire Department had owned needed to be moved out of the storage space.

“At the time, I was 15 years old,” Busho said, “and I wanted to buy it, but my dad wouldn’t let me. His deal was, ‘what the hell are you going to do with a fire truck?’ In hindsight, it’s good that he didn’t, because I probably would’ve wrecked that truck.”

Instead, Andy Lerberg – who also has a rich Ellendale history – and Steve Louks bought it.

It was “locked up,” Busho said. “The actual motor wouldn’t turn over, but those two guys got it freed up and running.”

He saw it around town occasionally, then it disappeared.

Bringing it back

It was another firefighter who prompted Busho to track it down.

Nolan McGowan was getting married, “and the old chief wouldn’t let him use the (active) fire trucks to take (wedding) pictures,” Busho said. “I told him, ‘I might have something for you,’ so I called Steve.”

Louks had moved the truck to a storage site in Claremont.

“He said, ‘if you can get it running, you can take it,’” Busho said. “So I went and got it, and got it running enough to move it around for pictures, but it had never run right.”

Louks then asked Busho to take the truck to a fire truck show in Geneva, and eventually warmed up to the idea of selling it.

“I’d been bothering him about it for quite a while,” Busho said.

How long?

“At least once a year, since I was 15,” he said.

Busho has owned it for a few years now.

More history

Along with the truck, Busho received a large box of … stuff.

“It was full of photos, the original owner’s manuals, World War II fuel rationing stamps for the truck, old service records,” he said.

“A funny thing about it: Our family had a service station in town; all the service on it was done at our family service station there,” Busho said.

That station was Busho and Sons – Logan’s great-grandfather George, his grandfather, Waylen Sr., and great-uncle, Robert, were the owners.

“There’s a service slip still in the door jamb (of the truck), from our family’s service station,” Logan said.

And that’s not all.

“There were pictures of the truck at a fire,” he said. “Our family’s first service station – burning – is where those pictures were taken.”

The station, located about two blocks south of the current RJ’s on Fifth Avenue, burned down in 1947. The family rebuilt about a block away in 1951-52; they sold the business in 1967, when George’s health was failing.

So the old truck, Busho said, “has a lot of ties to me, personally, but also to the town.”

The work

Since he bought it, Busho has been working on “getting it running right. As you can imagine, tracking down parts for a ’39 International isn’t the easiest thing.”

One company continues to make the parts.

“I have more money in the parts than I do in the truck,” he said.

One of the compartments still has rubber gloves and chemicals; though it was bare in 2005, “Andy and Steve found ladders … all the period-correct stuff, so it’s pretty close to how it was back in the day,” Busho said.

“It runs pretty good,” he said, with a top speed of 35 mph, and while the interior “is like brand-new,” the original paint is “in a little bit of rough shape.”

“Ellendale” is still visible on the hood, though, as is the gold leaf used when it was new.

“It’s kind of a time capsule,” Busho said. “It’s something that could have been gone forever, but it’s still in the area. You think about the different people who have run it over the years, different things that have touched it…”

Lerberg and Louks both wanted to see the truck stay in town, he said.

“That was one of the requirements when he sold it to me, was that if I ever sell it, it has to stay in Ellendale.”

After his initial reluctance, Louks has seen Busho’s dedication.

“I think he’s pretty happy to see somebody was actually willing to put the work in, to keep it running, and keep it in the area,” Busho said.

“It would’ve gotten to a point where it wasn’t salvageable anymore,” he said, “or somebody else would have bought it and it might have sat out in a woods somewhere…

“I hate to even think what might have happened to it, because it’s just a beautiful truck.”

George would probably agree.