The Last Alarm - Oklahoma Firefighters Museum - Oklahoma City, OK
Posted by: hamquilter
N 35° 31.292 W 097° 27.833
14S E 639283 N 3931966
This mural is a work from the heart of the artist, Lynn Campbell.
Waymark Code: WMBCYA
Location: Oklahoma, United States
Date Posted: 05/07/2011
Views: 4
The Oklahoma Firefighters Museum is so much more than just a museum. As you walk through the rooms, you can feel the pride the firefighters have always had in their firefighting equipment and apparatus. You can see fire trucks and hand-drawn chemical wagons from the earliest days of Oklahoma, as well as the colorful, unique badges of many of the fire departments around the country. A hand-held recorder allows you to hear an audio describing what you are seeing.
On the south wall of the museum is this wonderful memorial mural to so many pieces of firefighting equipment from days gone by. The mural is painted in acrylics on a pressed board and measures a full eight feet high and 58 feet long.
The story documented on a nearby plaque tells of how, in 1976, Lynn Campbell was commissioned to paint a single "steamer," (the unit pictured at the center of this mural. He showed the committee the numerous photographs he and his wife had taken of firetrucks all over the country and told them what he would really like to do is paint a mural. Asked what that would cost the museum, he said if they would provide he and his wife a place to live, they would paint the mural for the same cost as the steamer alone. The museum agreed and remodeled two rooms for them to stay in, in the museum. From June 1976 to July 1977, the Campbells lived onsite, and painted day and night on this mural, before the eyes of the visitors who came to the museum. It is truly a work of the heart.
The mural depicts different pieces of fire fighting apparatus from the period of the horse-drawn steamer to the mid-1950s.
City: Oklahoma City
Location Name: Oklahoma Firefighters Museum
Artist: Lynn Campbell
Date: 1976
Media: Acrylic on pressed board
Relevant Web Site: [Web Link]
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Visit Instructions:
Please give the date and description of your visit. One original photo of the mural must also be submitted. GPSr photo NOT required.