I recently travelled about an hour from my home to nearby Jeffersonville, Indiana. I was going for an eye doctor appointment, but I had my wife and son with me, and it was their first time in Indiana. We decided to make a day of it and tour the scenic downtown.
Our first stop was at the Vintage Fire Museum. I first learned of the place on Trip Advisor, and when I read about it I knew it was a place I wanted to take my seven-year-old. My interest was piqued by the promise of firefighting equipment dating back to the 1750s, and I was also lured by the promise of an accessible floorplan and wheelchair-accessible bathrooms. They mentioned these things on their website, and as a travel blogger with a focus on accessibility I knew I just had to check it out for myself.
We arrived on a Wednesday afternoon, around 12:15 p.m., on a chilly December day. It was just the kind of day you wouldn’t expect many people to be touring a fire museum, so it was no surprise that we were the only group there for the entire length of our approximately 1.5-hour visit.
After taking some pictures of the exterior of the building and the many things there were to experience outdoors, we headed inside and were greeted by a wonderful man named Henry. He seemed excited to have visitors and noted that it had been a particularly dull day up to that point, so we were happy to liven up his day a bit.
Henry is an 83-year-old retired firefighter. He was the perfect tour guide for the museum, which featured a long history of firefighting equipment. He drew upon decades of experience and an in-depth knowledge of firefighting history to really draw us into the world inside the museum.
Before we got started, there was a small matter of payment. Typically, it is $7 for adults and $4 for children, but he noticed my white cane and offered to waive my admission fee. We paid just for my wife and son, which was a very thoughtful gesture.
After we got going, he took my boy through a brief tour of their fire safety area. Gareth, my son, learned a lot about how to keep his bedroom safe and escape if he is ever in the house when there is a fire. He learned about Henry’s “Aunt EDITH,” which stands for “Exit Drills in the House” and he even got to experiment with a mock fire extinguisher.
After some fun and educational fire safety tips, we toured the rest of the museum. We saw everything from hand-pulled fire wagons to more modern vehicles. Some of them were pulled by a few men, while others took teams of over 20 people to operate. The museum has a working exhibit that details how firefighters knew which district in a city to respond to when there was a fire, and it also has an old Model T fire engine complete with hand-cranked siren (which Gareth got to operate).
As we toured the museum, Henry encouraged us to touch and feel whatever we would like. He wasn’t nervous about me exploring things with my hands, and even offered up a few especially interesting artifacts for me to feel. I have to admit that I usually find museums boring because it’s mostly “look, don’t touch” and that doesn’t do much for a blind guy. This was a very nice change of pace.
The museum’s website indicates a tour should take about 30-60 minutes, but we spent closer to 90 minutes wandering around and exploring everything. Henry was a wealth of knowledge and had plenty of his own anecdotes to share. I would highly recommend visiting on a slow day so you can really take your time and get an intimate tour with a guide such as Henry.
We didn’t take any time to tour the wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, but overall the place seemed fairly accessible. It was almost entirely on one level and, with a few exceptions, there was space to maneuver. I wouldn’t bring a power wheelchair into the building, but a slimmer chair should be able to handle most of the walkways easily enough.
There was one small room with a ramp leading up to it that seemed like it might be difficult for a wheelchair user. Most of what was in the room could be viewed from outside it and I feel like the right type of chair could probably make it up and down the ramp, but it obviously wasn’t design with wheels in mind and may pose a challenge for some people.
Overall, I was impressed with the accessibility of the place. It was nice that we were encouraged to touch and feel things, and the single level helped make it easy to get around. I occasionally had to watch out for things at head-level and walk carefully with my cane in a few areas, but sustained no injuries and broke nothing in the building so I’ll call that a win.
As we were on our way out, we mentioned to Henry that we were going to be visiting the bakery across the street. He helpfully added that we should also take a tour of Schimpff’s Confections just a couple blocks away. It’s a store and candy museum that has been operated since 1891. It was kind of him to point us in that direction, so we decided to add that to our list of places to visit while we were in town.
We were impressed by the Vintage Fire Museum. It was a great first stop on our tour of downtown Jeffersonville, and if you’re ever in the area you should stop by too.