Tampa Firefighters Museum

The Tampa Firefighters Museum is a nonprofit museum in Fire Station No. 1, the 1911 brick firehouse at 720 East Zack Street in downtown Tampa that the City of Tampa designated a local historic landmark in 2002.

The City of Tampa's 2024 Landmarks and Historic Preservation Designations book records Fire Station No. 1 as constructed in 1911 in the Brick Vernacular style, with no National Register listing, a local historic designation of 2002 and an unknown architect. It says the station was the first building to exclusively house the Tampa Fire Department, which had previously operated out of City Hall along with the city's police department, and that it was built by the City of Tampa under the Public Works Commission.

The museum states its mission as preserving the heritage of the Tampa Fire Department and promoting life-saving safety education and fire prevention within the community. The City of Tampa page about Tampa Fire Rescue, a department it says was established on May 10, 1895 and now operates 23 fire stations and two rescue stations across the city and MacDill Air Force Base, closes by pointing readers to the Tampa Firefighter's Museum website for a full history of the department.

The key dates run from the department's founding in 1895 to the museum's new children's play area in March 2026, according to the City of Tampa and the museum.

The 1911 firehouse matters because it was the first building in Tampa to house only the fire department, and the museum says it was the last Tampa station built with horse-drawn apparatus in mind.

The museum's description of the building says the station was built of brick in 1911 to make it resistant to fire being spread from adjacent wood buildings. The walls, the fire shutters on the windows, the poles firefighters used to reach the first floor from the second, and gashes in the floor left by horse-drawn, steam-powered equipment rolling to an alarm are all treated as exhibits. The city designations book adds that Tampa had one of Florida's first and largest professional fire departments of its time.

The museum's venue pages describe a first-floor exhibit hall of about 5,000 square feet with three original, working bay doors, a cement floor that still shows marks from horse hooves, and brick walls made from the same bricks that rebuilt Ybor City after early 1900s fires. According to the museum, the building presided during its active years over a 63-year transformation from horse-drawn apparatus to diesel-powered rescue and firefighting vehicles.

Old Station 1 in Tampa became a museum after firefighters formed a nonprofit during the department's 1995 centennial and the city transferred the building's title to it, according to the museum.

The museum's account of its nonprofit founding says the retired 1911 firehouse was then of little use to the City, was being used as office space and equipment storage, and was in poor condition. During the centennial, a group of firefighters spoke with historians about saving the department's history, stories and traditions, and The Tampa Firefighters Museum, Inc. grew out of those meetings. Working with local community leaders including Mayor Dick Greco, the group obtained title to the old fire station. Greco was then in his third term, which the Office of the City Clerk dates from April 1, 1995 to April 1, 2003.

The museum gives 1997 as the year its 501(c)(3) organization was established. The City of Tampa's Landmarks and Historic Preservation Designations book records a complete rehabilitation in 2002, after which the building began serving as the Tampa Firefighters Museum, and a local historic designation the same year. The two sources also differ on when the station left service: the city book says it was operational from 1911 until 1974, while the museum says the building served as department headquarters until 1978, when its replacement opened across the street.

The museum says the building has received the Commercial Restoration Achievement Award from Tampa Preservation Inc. and the Hillsborough County Historic Preservation Award, and that its nonprofit owns and operates the building with no direct City financial support for upkeep of the building or exhibits.

The museum displays fire trucks, alarm and communications equipment and a memorial sculpture, and its documents are shared through the Tampa City Clerk.

According to the museum, fire trucks occupy the old Tampa apparatus bays, with safety nets on the walls and places where hoses were once laid to dry between calls. A large communications board and fire alarm boxes recall a time when phones were rare and residents had to go to the corner and pull a box to summon help. A metal sculpture in one corner is a memorial to the 343 New York firefighters lost on September 11, 2001.

Paper records are part of the same story. The City of Tampa Office of the City Clerk lists the Tampa Firefighters Museum among its archival partners and posts historic documents from the museum: a Fire Chief's Report from 1903, the 1906 Rules and Regulations Governing the Tampa Fire Department, and National Board of Fire Underwriters reports on Tampa from 1923 and 1960.

The 1925 Seagrave is a Tampa pumper named for Mayor Perry Wall that returned to the city in May 2025 to join the museum's permanent collection.

The museum's Seagrave gallery page says the truck was built in September 1925 as a factory demonstrator shown at the International Association of Fire Chiefs convention in Louisville, Kentucky. Mayor Wall bought it for Tampa in 1926, when all fire trucks were named for a local dignitary. The City Clerk records Wall's term as January 8, 1924 to January 3, 1928.

The same page says the truck entered service painted blue with red wheels and was painted red in the mid-1930s. The number 13 on its fuel tank marks it as the thirteenth motorized apparatus bought by the city, which had phased out horse-drawn apparatus about 1914. It operated from fire station 4 at 9th Avenue and 18th Street in Ybor City, left front-line service in the early 1950s and served several years as a reserve truck. The museum describes it as fully operational and a cornerstone of its permanent collection.

The Tampa museum lists hours of Tuesday to Friday, 10 am to 2 pm, with no admission charge for the apparatus floor and donations appreciated.

The Downtown Safety District is a children's exhibit modeled on a downtown Tampa streetscape, fire station, playhouse, emergency room, ambulance and cafe. The museum notes that it does not schedule visits to Tampa Fire Rescue Station 1 across the street; those tours are arranged through the Tampa Fire Rescue Public Education Coordinator at 813-274-7002. The venue pages place the museum steps from the Tampa Riverwalk, Curtis Hixon Park and the Tampa Convention Center.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, for the Zack Street firehouse against the City of Tampa designations book, the Tampa Fire Rescue and City Clerk pages, and the museum's own hours, admission and history pages.