Motorized Fire Trucks

As horses were phased out of service, Ringgold Hose on Colden Street was the first of Newburgh's companies to get a motorized fire truck in 1907.

The Knox apparatus, made in Springfield Massachusetts, had a motor with only two cylinders that proved too weak to climb the city's steep hills. After badly losing a test race to a team of horses, it was returned and outfitted with a four-cylinder motor and 40 horsepower. Mechanical trucks at that time averaged $85 a year to run versus $660 for the care and feeding of a three-horse team.