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About Aurora Regional Fire Museum

Location:

53 N. Broadway, P. O. Box 1782, Aurora 60507, AURORA, IL 60505, US

Mission Statement

Aurora Fire Station Preservation Corporation doing business in Illinois under the assumed name of the AURORA REGIONAL FIRE MUSEUM Mission Statement The Aurora Regional Fire Museum is a non-profit, tax exempt, 501(c)3, educational museum whose purpose is to preserve and exhibit the artifacts and history of firefighting, in Aurora and the surrounding areas, as well as teach and promote fire safety and prevention. The organization, Aurora Fire Station Preservation Corporation, was formed in 1989 as a non-profit to save from demolition the 1894 Old Central Fire Station with the intent to operate as a museum. Once the building was saved, appropriate forms were filed with the State of Illinois to do business with a name more appropriate for a museum.

Description

The Aurora Regional Fire Museum is located in Aurora's fully restored 1894 Central Fire Station and features a variety of family-friendly, hands-on, interactive exhibits, designed to educate and entertain.

The independent, non-profit, museum attracts between five and seven thousand visitors annually from a wide geographic area. The museum also offers group tours, hosts a variety of lectures and educational programs in it's fifty-seat auditorium, and participates in numerous special events, parades, community festivals.

The museum's primary exhibit, "Getting There, Getting Water, Getting Rescued" traces the evolution of the tools and technology used by firefighters. Visitors can pass a leather fire bucket from the early 1800s. See the horse stalls and the "real" fire horses. Marvel at the strange looking Vajen-Bader smoke mask. See and hear to how modern fire apparatus clears the streets with sirens, air horns, and devices that change traffic lights green. Watch vintage film clips of firefighters and fire engines on five video touch-screens.

The Aurora Regional Fire Museum's collection is comprised of five pieces of fire apparatus (ranging from the 1850s through the 1940s), 5,000 artifacts, and over 10,000 photographs and archival documents in a research collection.