What I try to do here is preserve history.

Hello, I'm Rick James and I'm from Port Matilda, Pennsylvania.

And I'm your neighbor.

I've never considered myself a collector of fire trucks.

I've considered myself someone that seeks out important pieces of history.

At first, my goal was to recapture some of my childhood.

My earliest remembrances are of 118 South Fraser Street, where the Alpha Fire Company had its original station.

And going there as a child with my father, who volunteered.

It was just a magical time in my life.

I am the historian of the Alpha Fire Company.

I'm embarking on 20 years of membership and it was my way of giving back to the community.

Currently, the collection is housing approximately 35 pieces, ten of which are retired alpha units, and I have a few distributed at a couple of museum entities that are in the state of Pennsylvania.

This is the 1923 Rio, the first motorized piece of the Alpha Fire Company.

It served the community from 1923 to 1931.

This is the 1923 Penn State auto car, and it served the state college community until 1936.

This is the blue and white ladder truck, as it was affectionately known, or the flagship of the Alpha Fire Company.

It served our community from 1954 to 1987.

When I got into the significance of firefighting history, I learned very quickly that different pieces of equipment mean different things to different communities, and that the story where these pieces of equipment served and what incidents they might have been on and those that operated them, the men and women that devoted their lives to taking care of others and protecting others.

It's never, ever been about the chrome, the steel, the iron, the truck.

They're your neighbors devoting to the community.

I just have always felt a very tight tie to the history of the preservation of life and property.

The reason why this place means so much to me.

My grandfather bought this farm in 46 for 6500 bucks, and I grew up listening to stories about it.

I grew up listening to raising 11 kids here and how hard the work was, but how beautiful place it was.

This is my little slice of heaven.

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