PHOTO VIA ORLANDO FIRE DEPARTMENT FACEBOOK PAGE
The Randall R. Tuten Orlando Fire Museum (Website) will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its building on February 28 with free family activities at the former firehouse in Loch Haven Park. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 814 E. Rollins Street [GMap], which is actually the address for the adjacent Orlando Garden Club, but the museum is tucked behind Orlando Shakes (look for the little fire truck post). The event will feature museum tours, fire hose demonstrations, fire extinguisher demonstrations, firefighter meet-and-greets, fire truck tours, food, and drinks.
The building opened in 1926 as Orlando Firehouse 3 and served the College Park community for nearly 50 years. Firefighters called it “The Knights of College Park.” In 1972, the city built a new Station 3 about a mile west, next to Princeton Elementary School, to better serve the expanded residential area near Dubsdread Golf Course. The old firehouse sat inactive for years until it was renovated and turned into a museum and reopened in 1990 with tours. The Orlando Fire Department took ownership of the museum in 2002. In 2016, Mayor Buddy Dyer renamed it to honor Randall R. Tuten, a retired deputy fire chief.
The museum houses a restored 1926 American LaFrance fire engine known as Old Number Six. The truck was purchased by Fire Chief William Dean, who led the department for 48 years and pushed for better equipment for his team.
“You can go to Boston, you can go to New York or some other big city, and they have a lot of apparatus, but those apparatus they acquired, they didn’t operate them,” Peavey said in a 2024 interview with Spectrum News. “Everything in this museum was bought by the city of Orlando and used by the city of Orlando.”
The collection includes the city’s original horse-drawn fire engines from the 1800s and one of Orlando’s first pull station alarms from the 1920s. Displays also feature old photos, newspaper reports, safety equipment, and other memorabilia.
The museum is normally open Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and is staffed almost entirely by active and retired Orlando firefighters.
