Arthur "Smokestack" Hardy

There is a museum of his collection of fire related artifacts in West Baltimore curated by Guy Cephas, a fellow Retired Auxiliary firefighter.

[3] At the age of three, Hardy witnessed the Great Baltimore Fire in 1904 from the roof of his grandmother's house and it profoundly influenced his life.

He was prolific, and dated all of the replies he got in return, amassing a collection of letters that filled black binders in his home in West Baltimore on McCulloh st.

A new Book on firefighters integration struggles mentions one such letter, sent to then Battalion Chief Wesley Williams of the FDNY Vulcan Society in 1941.

[12][13] Another fire buff, Mike Legeros, reserved a section in his online history of black firefighters for Smokestack and his ring in, the system he used to acknowledge a return correspondence (m-d-y).

Twice he was a featured article in Ebony and in 1954 the Negro History Bulletin by Carter G. Woodson called him "A Real American Fire Fan".

Over the years elementary school groups, clubs and churches have visited the current location and Cephas envisions an expanded museum to allow him to display many of the artifacts he has in storage.

The collection of museum quality artifacts include an alarm gong, call boxes, signs, hoses, photographs,[25] fire engines models, lanterns, bells, and water buckets.

Copies of newspaper articles, photo prints,[26] helmets,[27] badges, calendars, correspondence[28][29] and fire patches from departments all over the world round out the collection.