hose reel

Colored firemen seek a racing reel.

A regular meeting of the Board of Commissioners of the Town of Wilson was held in the Mayor’s office, August 1, 1900.

…

The Colored Hose Reel Company made an application for a racing Reel and for an appropriation to assist them in attending the Colored Firemen Association.

It was moved and carried that the Town purchase a racing Reel for its Fire Departments and lend it to the Companies and pay one half of their expense to the Firemen Association.

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Minutes of City Council, Wilson, North Carolina, transcribed in bound volumes shelved at Wilson County Public Library, Wilson.

Run over by a reel.

Wilson Advance, 9 January 1896.

John A. Corbett collided with the Red Hots’ hose reel as both dashed to a fire in January 1896. The Red Hots’ reel, which was pulled by hand until the city gave them a horse in 1921, likely looked much like the one below, restored and displayed in the Raleigh Fire Museum. See here for interesting info about the history and operation of hose reels.

Photo courtesy of the Raleigh Fire Museum, Raleigh, North Carolina.