PHOTOS: Unused, unwanted and in disrepair, an old fire truck that began service in Rockport when President Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House has been sold. But the 1928 American LaFrance ladder truck will not be far away when it settles soon into its new home, a cavernous, backyard former chicken coop on Barnstown Road.
Andy Swift of Hope bought the truck from the town in early August. His $1,213 offer was the only bid received for the vintage vehicle that arrived in Rockport from the Rockland Fire Department in 1955 and has been out of service for 32 years, according to Rockport Fire Chief Jason Peasley.
“I just want to have it,” Swift said. “I’ll have to get it running in my spare time.”
His firm, Firefly Restoration, restores antique fire engines and trucks. Typically, trucks have ladders, engines do not.