Peter Pirsch & Sons Co.

Peter Pirsch & Sons Co. was a fire apparatus manufacturer located in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

History
Peter Pirsch (1866-1954) worked in his father's carriage business in Kenosha at the age of 14. He founded his own company in 1900. The Peter Pirsch Company built firefighting tools before expanding into hose wagons, chemical engines and hook & ladder trucks. Pirsch built his first motorized apparatus for the Kenosha Fire Department in 1908 and moved to a new plant in Kenosha in 1916.

The company, which changed its name to Peter Pirsch & Sons Co. in 1919, expanded over the following decades, making it a major player in the US fire apparatus industry. Aerial ladders were introduced in the 1930s, including the first fully-powered 100-foot aerial ladder device in the United States in 1935. Pirsch started producing custom chassis in 1926, moving to cabovers in 1961.

Like a number of apparatus manufacturers, Pirsch experienced financial difficulties in the 1980s. The company declared bankruptcy in 1986. Another company tried to resurrect the operation in 1987, but that effort ended in bankruptcy as well. North Central Fire Apparatus acquired parts of the factory in 1991 and completed the last rig in production. North Central Fire Apparatus occupied the grounds for a period of time afterward, and a fitness studio opened in one of the buildings in 2015.