Staff photo / R. Michael Semple ... Retired Struthers firefighter Michael Patrick, who currently serves as president of Struthers City Council, talks about the engine in his 1943 Mack Model L80 firetruck. Patrick says the model was the second motorized firetruck the city department ever had.

STRUTHERS — If you regularly drive on a portion of state Route 616, you probably have been seeing red — something for which you can thank Mike Patrick.

“It was the second motorized firetruck Struthers ever had,” Patrick, city council president, said Monday about the 1943 Mack pumper L-80 model he bought about 16 years ago from Donald Clemente, a retired Struthers firefighter.

Patrick, who has been on council since 2008 and also served 27 years as a Struthers volunteer firefighter, keeps the vintage truck as well as his 1978 Mack pumper vehicle in a 3,360-square-foot storage building on Poland Avenue he designed. He hired Meadville, Pa.-based Morton Buildings Inc. to construct it about seven months ago.

After the older truck had been returned to Struthers from Columbus, Ind., in “rough” shape, Patrick restored and repainted it. The 1943 model, built at the Mack plant in Allentown, Pa., (now a museum), has the original siren, speedometer, radio, throttle and choke. The overhead light was not installed, however, until the early 1960s because it was feared that after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese might strike the continental U.S., and that such a light also could serve as a target, Patrick explained. The truck also has hydraulic brakes, a 6-cylinder gasoline engine and a 750-gallon pump.

The vintage firetruck almost suffered its own casualty, because it had been in a building that caught fire, Patrick remembered.

“I broke into the building to get it out,” he said, adding that the move resulted in damage to the vehicle’s rear differential.

The truck also took three deceased Struthers firefighters “on their last ride,” he said. One of them was Donald J. Cooper, who served as fire chief from 1971 to 1980 and died in October 2004 at 75.

In December 2019, Patrick bought the white 1978 Mack truck, converted to a firetruck, at a Struthers auction “as is.” Affixed to the front hood is a bulldog mascot that is gold to represent that the vehicle has all original Mack parts, Patrick continued.

The truck also was the first on the scene of a massive tire fire July 4, 1988, off Lowellville Road that was originally thought to have been a grass fire. Nevertheless, the thick black plume of smoke indicated the situation was more serious, recalled Patrick, who was in the passenger seat while responding to the conflagration.

In addition, that fire coincided with the city’s annual Fourth of July parade, which also was a blessing because the timing generated a quick and large response to the blaze, he said.

“All departments in that parade, they all came to that fire,” which was under control by evening, Patrick added.

The large red and brown building that houses Patrick’s two vintage firetrucks remains a work in progress. Specifically, fire extinguishers need to be installed, and the storage facility still has to be inspected, Patrick explained.

That’s not to say, however, that the space is underused. Also inside is a 1975 Pontiac Grand Ville that Patrick bought; in addition, the building may be home to his 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix that is at Patrick’s residence, he said.

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