The Fire Museum of Memphis occupies a working-era fire station on Adams Avenue, downtown, and contains one of the more impressive collections of vintage fire apparatus in the South. The trucks span from the horse-drawn steam pumpers of the nineteenth century through gleaming mid-century American LaFrance and Seagrave engines to more recent apparatus. The collection is well-maintained and clearly loved by the people who run the place.
Beyond the vehicles, the museum tells the history of fire fighting in Memphis, including the catastrophic fires that periodically swept the city's wooden commercial districts in the nineteenth century and the firefighters who died in them. The permanent collection includes historic photographs, equipment, and records. It is a modest-scale museum with a specific focus, but it is done well, and the engines themselves are beautiful objects. The building also has a fire education section aimed at children, which makes it a reliable family stop.