Perhaps the most defining single event in the Society’s history, SPAAMFAA hosted its First Annual Northeast Antique Fire Apparatus Show And Muster in Syracuse on Saturday, August 3rd. On flatbeds and under their own power, antique and vintage fire apparatus began rolling into the Syracuse Fire Department Training Academy yard on State Fair Blvd. Friday afternoon and evening. The following morning – Muster Day — some 35 rigs paraded noisily from the Academy to the New York State Barge Canal Terminal on Solar St. There, suction hoses splashed into the water, aerial ladders sprang into the sky and thousands came out to see the old engines do their stuff. The event ended with a buffet dinner at Raphael’s Restaurant that evening.

“Muster Magnificent – At least that seemed to be the consensus of more than 100 SPAAMFAA members and 2,000 citizens who took part in or viewed with pleasure our First Annual Northeast Antique Fire Apparatus Show & Muster in Syracuse August 2 and 3”, Horstmann wrote in the group’s September newsletter. “Over 35 rigs from all parts of the East were on hand for the Grand Parade, some excellent pumping and other demonstrations and displays, plus a Dutch-treat dinner finale”.

That was the day SPAAMFAA was almost instantly transformed from a small local organization to a much more broadly-based one. Membership soared. Immediate plans were made to do it again the following year.