Town’s fire department acquires its antique truck

MILAN, Tenn.– One local fire department gets a new, or technically old, set of wheels.

“We could get a truck, an antique truck, from anybody, anywhere, but to have one that came from our department is really special,” Milan Fire Chief Steven Dillard said.

Dillard is excited to bring a piece of hometown history back to Milan, and it all started about a year ago.

“I got a phone call from a gentleman in Kentucky. He said ‘Chief, I think I have one of your engines.’ I thought he was probably looking for some type of historical data on, or something of that nature, on the truck,” Dillard said.

He texted with the man and received some pictures, sparking a sense of deja vu.

“When I got the pictures back, I knew immediately it was one of our trucks,” Dillard said.

After that phone call, Dillard and a group of his firefighters made the nearly three and a half hour drive to Elizabethtown, Kentucky to drive home a piece of their history.

The truck was sold several years ago, but now rejoins the rest of the Milan fleet.

“We really don’t know to who, but Mr. Miller told me that he bought it from someone in Middle Tennessee, and had the truck for 35 years,” Dillard said. “It didn’t take a whole lot to get it running. They’ve re done the brake system.”

The department plans to continue restoring the truck, and will plan fundraisers later on through the Milan Firefighter’s Foundation.

“It’s something that we can carry forward that’s going to carry our heritage forward as well,” Dillard said

The fire truck’s first outing was Sunday when community members filmed the entry video for HGTV’s ‘Hometown Takeover.’