well, bakapo,mmitchell_houston, and gaius was right. it was the first aerial ladder truck at Mesquite,TX, USA by American La France of the newer design THE first aerial ladder in the United States was invented in 1886. Firefighters, before the aerial ladder, had to splice ground ladders together to access upper floors of the taller buildings. The operation was not always successful. Daniel Hayes, the superintendent of steamers with the San Francisco Fire Department, came up with a solution with an aerial ladder. It was a service ladder truck mounted with a two-section wooden ladder. The bed ladder of the aerial was raised by cranking a long screw which forced up the ladder. Extension of the fly ladder and rotation of a turn table were also done by hand. The truck was pulled by two or three horses. It was pulled by two horses and carried 165-feet of ground ladders, including a 45-foot extension ladder and two pompier ladders. The aerial ladder had a reach of 75 feet. No. 1 aerial ladder was listed as a Dahill-Hays aerial ladder in a report by the National Board of Fire Underwriters, and the bed ladder was raised "pneumatically." The name of the aerial was probably Hayes (spelled with an e), because Hayes was the only aerial ladder manufactured at the time. Also, the aerial ladder was probably not raised pneumatically, but rather had a spring-assist to raise the bed ladder. (Pneumatically-raised ladders had been tried but never gained popularity because of a need for special equipment at the fire station to keep the tanks filled with compressed air.) LaFrance was manufacturing the Hayes aerial ladder at the time and had introduced the spring-assist bed ladder the previous year. http://www.houstonfiremuseum.org/apparatus/aerial.htm