KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – More than 40 historic fire department log books are now housed at the Kansas City Public Library, offering a look at the city’s earliest recorded history through the eyes of its fire department.
The records date to the 1890s and include health reports, injury logs and daily call records. The collection was preserved by Ray Elder, a retired firefighter, who kept the books in his basement until they could be made more widely accessible.
Collection now open to researchers
Jeremy Drouin with Missouri Valley Special Collections said the library is in the process of digitizing and preserving the records before making them available to the public.
“We can pull these books for people. Or even if someone’s out of town, they can call us. They could say, you know, I had a relative work for the fire department in the 1930s. Do you have any record of his work in the collection?” Drouin said…