AVON, NY — The efforts of a nonprofit south of Rochester to raise $50,000 to buy back the local fire department’s first-ever fire truck have paid off. The vehicle, first purchased by the Avon Fire Department in 1926, sat in a Canadian museum for decades. Now it’s back where it belongs.

Sometimes things just work out better than you can imagine.

“It really came out of nowhere,” said Richard Neth, former Avon fire chief. “It’s been quite a journey. But she’s home.”

“She” is the 1926 Ahrens-Fox pump truck, Avon’s first pump truck. In the spring, Neth and Kerry Murray told Spectrum News 1 about the efforts of the nonprofit Ahrens-Fox Full Circle Preservation Society, which they founded, to raise $50,000 to purchase the truck from a museum in Canada and bring it back to Avon.

A fundraiser that was making slow progress until Murray got a call.

“I had to sit down,” Murray said. “That can’t be true. Really? That much money?”

It involved $36,000 from an anonymous donor that led to a recent trip to Canada, where the old pumper truck was loaded onto a trailer and brought home.

“When they brought it outside, it looked really great,” Neth said. “For 98 years old, it’s in incredible shape, so we’re excited to take the next step.”

The Ahrens-Fox still needs a little work to make it roadworthy.

“It’s amazing that this thing has survived so many years,” said Brian Strowzewski of the Avon Fire Department.

Especially considering the history. Avon sold the truck as scrap for $300 in the 1950s and it has had several owners over the years.

“We always knew where it was,” Neth said. “And we thought it must be great to have it back.”

Now it’s that time again: Ahrens-Fuchs has just completed its first competition at a local fire brigade congress.

“She drove over in a flatbed truck,” Neth said. “She went on her first date and came home with a trophy.”

Not bad for a 98-year-old piece of history. It couldn’t have gone better.

“Yeah, we’re looking forward to showing them off,” he said. “We’re pretty happy.”