Join us for the Friendship Firehouse Festival to celebrate Friendship’s 249th year. Learn about fire safety today, and yesterday, and see Alexandria Fire Department equipment up close. There will be booths by the Alexandria Police Department and Sheriff’s Office, music performances, displays by community organizations, vendor booths, and food and beverage sales. Join in water play and please-touch artifact activities. Children will receive free toy Friendship firefighting helmets. This family event is presented by the Friendship Veterans Fire Engine Association and the Office of Historic Alexandria.
The Friendship Fire Company, established in 1774, was the first fire company in Alexandria. Today the Friendship Firehouse, built in 1855, is a museum open to the public. Friendship’s restored 1858 hose-reel carriage will be on exhibit. This ornate apparatus was made by local craftsman Robert F. Prettyman. It is painted midnight blue with white decorative piping, has gilded decorative shields flanking each side of the reel, red wheels decorated with blue and gold striping, and a brass lantern and bells.
For more information see https://www.alexandriava.gov/FriendshipFirehouse and
https://www.friendshipfireco.org/.
The Friendship Firehouse Museum is owned and operated by the City of Alexandria and administered by the City’s Office of Historic Alexandria.
For reasonable disability accommodation, contact jim.holloway@alexandriava.gov or 703.746.4994, Virginia Relay 711.
For inquiries from the news media only, contact the Office of Communications & Public Information at newsroom@alexandriava.gov or 703.746.3969.
This release is available at alexandriava.gov/go/4765.
Original source can be found here.
