Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Drive for Museum Is Catching Fire : History: If fund-raising campaign succeeds, firetrucks, uniforms and more would be displayed in old Station 33.

LANCASTER — A community group is trying to purchase the city’s oldest existing fire station to preserve as a museum.

In recent years, the former Fire Station 33, built in 1939, has been used as an art gallery. But Juanita Crothers, who ran the gallery, died last year, and her widower has offered to sell it to local history buffs if they can raise the money.

“Every time we tell somebody else about it, they share the excitement,” said Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Michael Singer, a proponent of the project. “It will be a hands-on kind of thing to put people in touch with their past.”

Singer, who also is a member of the Lancaster City Council, said he is not seeking city funds for the museum.

Instead, he helped form a local fund-raising group called SOS 33, for Save Old Station 33. If the group can raise about $100,000, it can buy and restore the station as a museum. It would be operated by the nonprofit County of Los Angeles Fire Museum Assn., made up of volunteers seeking to preserve historic firefighting equipment and memorabilia.

SOS 33 already has scheduled its first major fund-raiser, a barbecue and craft fair that will take place Oct. 30 at the station on Cedar Avenue just south of Lancaster Boulevard.

Lancaster resident Mindy Dell is spearheading the fund drive, even though neither she nor any member of her family is affiliated with a fire department. Dell said she supports the work done by firefighters and is eager to preserve one of the oldest buildings remaining in downtown Lancaster.

“I don’t believe in letting our heritage slip away,” she said. “Once it’s bulldozed, you can’t get it back.”

It is already too late to save the community’s first fire station, also called Station 33 and built in 1927, Dell said. It was demolished years ago and is now a parking lot.

She hopes to preserve its successor, which originally housed one firetruck and one or two permanent firefighters. When an emergency occurred, these firefighters were assisted by “callmen,” or part-timers who were paid for each alarm they responded to.

According to old Fire Department records, the land for the 1939 station was purchased for about $432, and the building cost almost $6,600 to construct. In 1966, county firefighters moved to a larger, more modern station a few doors south on Cedar.

Larry Gorrindo, a fire engineer assigned to the newest Station 33, said he supports the idea of turning the older firehouse into a museum.

“This is a good deal for the kids,” he said. “We give tours all the time. This would let the them see a new station, then an older one at the same time.”

Old fire stations that pass into private hands often lose their historic value when they are gutted and rebuilt as a restaurant or another type of business.

But Bob Hancock, president of the Fire Museum Assn., said the operators of the art galley did not significantly alter the old Station 33. “It’s pretty much in the original shape,” said Hancock, a fire captain at the county’s Lake Los Angeles station.

If the fund raising succeeds, there will be no trouble finding old firetrucks, uniforms, alarm boxes and other items to put on display. Hancock said his association has far more property than it has room to exhibit in a small showcase area at the department’s headquarters in East Los Angeles.

“I’ve had people offer to donate fire engines to the association,” he said. “I’ve had to turn them down because we don’t have enough storage space.”