The Vicksburg Fire Department’s horse-drawn fire wagon is getting a new lease on life.

The Board of Aldermen Tuesday approved a $2,415.29 contract with Clyde J. Ginn of Sumrall to refurbish the wagon for display. A location has not been decided.

Money for the project will come from $40,000 in unused grant money for a walking trail project.

“We’re still looking for someplace to put it,” Fire Chief Charles Atkins said. “Several places have been discussed — the old fire house No. 6, which is now an art gallery (the Fire House Gallery), one of the (fire) stations, or the island at the corner of Jackson Street and Washington Street. We had thought about putting it on display in a building, but we don’t have a building that large.”

Ginn, city attorney Nancy Thomas said, was recommended by the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce’s Agriculture Museum.

A retired history teacher who has a Ph.D. in administration, Ginn said Tuesday he expects to get the wagon and take it to his shop next week.

Thomas said Ginn was impressed with the wagon’s condition.

“That wagon is in pretty good shape as old as it is,” he said. “It’s over 100 years old. They were last built in 1910. At one time, there were 29 companies using the same wheels and chrome (as the city’s wagon) on their wagons. Some fire departments built their own. There are oval straps on both sides of the wagon that held brass fire extinguishers. I’m going to refurbish two brass fire extinguishers and put them on the wagon so people will know what it carried.”

The wooden hose and ladder wagon bears the designation “VFD No. 7” for fire station No. 7 on Washington Street, which was built in 1910 and was its original home. The station is still being used.

When the fire department discontinued using horse-drawn wagons in favor of trucks in 1923, the wagon went into storage and was transferred to several stations before winding up with other disregarded items at the old No. 8 fire station, which was closed in 2000 when Halls Ferry Road was widened and cut off the station’s driveway almost at the truck bay door. The firefighters and equipment were relocated to a building in Halls Ferry Park near Home Depot.