SARANAC LAKE – Saturday’s open house at the Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department will also be a homecoming party for one of its old fire trucks.

“Samantha,” a 1920 American LaFrance, was the department’s first motorized truck. The department recently re-acquired it from the estate of John “Hawkeye” Hawkinson. It was delivered to the firehouse on Broadway during the department’s monthly meeting Thursday, according to fire Chief Brendan Keough.

“It was a great surprise, and we had a big welcome home celebration that night,” Keough said in an email.

The old truck will be on display, along with the department’s newest trucks – a 2016 1,500 gallon-per-minute E-One Pumper and a 2017 Kenworth E-One 3,000 gallon tanker/pumper – during the department’s annual fire prevention open house from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

The event will also feature a live fire extinguisher demonstration, during which people can practice their fire extinguisher skills, and firefighter self-rescue “Bail Out” rappelling demonstrations.

Keough said the fate of Samantha was a mystery at the firehouse for many years.

“She was this big mythical legend and a thing of folklore at the firehouse for as long as I can remember,” he wrote. “We had just a few old photos at the fire house. We didn’t learn the truck even existed anymore until last year while preparing for our 125th anniversary celebration.”

Keough said the truck was shipped to the fire department on Nov. 15, 1920, based on the original paperwork that Hawkinson had kept. The chief said he isn’t sure how long it was in service, but there are repair receipts for the truck that date to the late 1950s.

Howard Riley, an Enterprise columnist and town of Harrietstown councilman, sold the truck to Hawkinson when he was village mayor in the early 1960s.

“Howard had approached Hawkeye on our behalf about possibly having the truck at our 125th Anniversary celebration,” Keough wrote. “Although we never got a firm answer, we recently learned he was in fact working on the truck for the celebration before he became ill and died.

“According to Howard, one of the stipulations when he sold Hawkeye the truck was that they had a gentleman’s agreement that Hawkeye would someday return the truck to SLVFD.

“We are very grateful to all those who helped make that happen. It is a priceless piece of our history.”