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Firemen’s Ball ticket sales
Tribune photo published May 27, 1950

The above picture, definitely posed for a purpose, is to serve as a warning that the firefighters of Ames soon will be calling on you at your place of business in the interests of selling tickets in the annual Firemen's Ball scheduled for Wednesday... at the Ames Golf and Country club.  The firemen lured some of the girls from the city clerk's office into the stationhouse with a promise "to give you something" and then took the dance tickets away from them after the picture had been taken.  Now their husbands or friends will have to buy tickets.  From left to right are Fred Roberg, Earl Quade, Betty Shankland, Bonita Carson, Shirley Kirwin, Winifred McGavran, Freda Smith and Melvin Makelbust.

These Ames city clerk workers dressed in fashionable firefighting gear are posed in behind the distinctive white Buffalo firetruck which the department purchased in 1941.  In order to park the long pumper inside the fire station located in the east end of the Municipal Building (now Youth and Shelter Services), the two bays required lengthening.

(photo courtesy of Lynn Christian)

Learn more about the history of the Ames Fire Department.