The Museum

The Tampa Firefighters Museum is located in a fully restored firehouse built in 1911.

The Museum Building

The history of the building began in 1911, serving as the downtown Tampa fire station and the original fire department headquarters until 1978 when a modern new fire station was built across the street.

The Museum

The features of the building reflect the unique time during which it was constructed. This fire station was the last one built in Tampa with horse-drawn fire apparatus in mind.

You begin to see the exhibits as soon as you enter the front door. You are surrounded by century-old brick, photographs of how the museum looked when it was a working fire station adorn the walls, and below your feet the floor shows scars from the days when hooves of the horse-pulled, heavy steam-drawn fire apparatus were called out of the station to an alarm.

Our Exhibits

These are some of the current exhibits shown at the Tampa Firefighters Museum. Visit us to see all we have on display!

  • From the time you pass through the main entryway, you can feel the strength of the brick construction all around you. Every detail shares stories of firefighting life in a different age.

    The station was built of brick in 1911 to make it resistant to fire being spread from adjacent wood buildings.

    The unique features of the fire station itself are a part of the exhibits. The walls, fire shutters on windows, poles for firefighters to quickly ascend from the second to first floor, and the gashes on the floor where past horse-drawn, steam-powered fire equipment were rolling to an alarm.

  • You’ll see various fire trucks housed in the Museum. On the walls, you’ll find safety nets and places where old hoses were laid to dry between calls.

  • A large communications board and fire alarm boxes speak to a time when phones were rare and radios almost nonexistent. To report an alarm, residents would have to go to the corner and ‘pull a box’ to summon help.

  • In a solemn corner of the Museum, sits a beautiful metal sculpture. It is a memorial to the firefighters in New York, 343 of them, who died on 9-11-2001.

  • The Museum includes a hands-on, interactive fire safety and emergency awareness area.

    Children can crawl through a ‘smoke-filled’ hallway depicted by smoke plumes on the wall. Then put on fire gear and ‘respond to the call’ on a kid-sized fire truck wearing fire garb.

    There is also a small kitchen area that shows examples of some of the more common causes of house fires.

The building and the exhibits join to help you look back at the history of Tampa firefighting life.

Make a donation.

Donations allow us to continue in our mission to preserve the history of the Tampa Fire Department and provide fire safety and educational outreach to our community.

Rent the firehouse.

The Museum is available to rent for your next special event including weddings, anniversaries, children’s birthdays, and fundraisers. Make our history a part of yours.

A Local Historical Landmark

The building, now more than a century old, is the warehouse and the showplace for exhibiting stories and memorabilia of Tampa and the Tampa Fire Department.

This building has been designated a “local historical landmark” by the City of Tampa Historic Designation Division. It has also received numerous restoration and preservation awards including the Commercial Restoration Achievement Award from Tampa Preservation Inc. and the Hillsborough County Historic Preservation Award.

Our nonprofit owns and operates the building. No direct City financial support is given for the upkeep of the building or exhibits.

“This museum is definitely worth the trip.”

-Denise F.