Local museum to restore 19th century fire station

BAY CITY, Mich. (WNEM) - A Bay County museum is working on a project to restore a fire station in Bay City.

The building, one of the original fire stations that served Bay City, was built in 1889 on Washington Avenue.

The Antique Toy and Firehouse Museum said they have completed the engineering phase of the restoration project. Experts say the original design is still in good shape.

The museum has thousands of curated items, with more than 60 pieces of firefighting materials.

The group plans to upgrade the old building into a new display and event space. The project costs $2.5 million.

“Essentially, this will become our main location, where we will be able to display 10 of our apparatus and about 7000 square feet of toys and relics dealing with first responder and fire service,” said Mike Snyder, the Vice Chairman.

Construction on the project starts later this year.

The group hopes to have the new location open in the spring.

“If you have a relevant piece of fire service history in the Great Lakes Bay Region, we’re always interested in loans or donations that we can work on putting together displays,” Snyder said.

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