Truck 21, the third Tower Ladder in the Chicago 1985 E-One Hurricane series is now available to order. At the time of this post, 55 of the 75 piece production are still available. Tower Ladder 10 and 14 sold out quickly, so don't delay in adding Truck 21 to your museum grade Chicago collection.

Chicago Fire Department Hook & Ladder 21 was organized in 1889, it was formally H & L 1 of the Lakeview Fire Department which was a annexed into Chicago in 1889. It’s originally was a horse drawn Hook & Ladder stationed on Belmont just east of Lincoln with a Chemical Wagon. The original station was a wood frame building which would be tore down and replaced with a brick building in 1927. The new brick building would only serve Hook & Ladder 21 for 13 years as Lincoln and Belmont was a large retail area with stores, and offices. Goldblatt’s, a large retail store wanted the station so it could expand its store which was located next to the fire house. Goldblatt’s and the city reached an agreement as Goldblatts helped get a new two bay Truck house built a few blocks away. A very beautiful station, the truck bay had a larger bay door, while the smaller door bay was used by the 13th Battalion. This station's kitchen was on the 2nd floor, which in fact was the last station to have a kitchen on the 2nd floor in the city.

The new station was able to to hold newer modern equipment, Truck 21 had some awesome rigs while here, when they moved to the new station they still had the 1927 White/Seagrave Tractor drawn rig, From 1944 until 1954, Truck 21 would run a few hand me downs from other companies. In 1954 they got a brand new FWD 85’ tractor drawn ladder. The FWD ran front line until 1970, when it was replaced with a 1970 Ward LaFrance/Grove rear mount unit (the city purchased five of these and they had a massive aerial) In 1974 that truck was sent to Truck 39 and ran front line until 1983. In 1974 Truck 21 received a 1974 AmLaFrance rear mount.

In 1979 Truck 21 would move in with Engine 112 at Damen and Grace, after 90 years as a single truck stationed unit. The newer station, like many in the 70’s and beyond. also consolidated many companies, closing the older stations. In 1979 when both the engine and truck moved in they both had American LaFrance rigs. In 1985 Engine 112 received one of the E-One Hurricane engines and soon after Truck 21 received its 1985 E-One Hurricane tower. Reserve Snorkel 1 (Fire Replicas Snorkel 1) was stationed here until 1985. Truck 21’s name change to Tower Ladder 21 occurred a few year later. The E-One Hurricane ran front line as Tower Ladder 21 until late in 2003, and was put in the spare pool until 2017. After running 32 years it was sold at auction in 2017.