Tomorrow marks a new start for an Island institution. The Oak Bluffs Fire Museum opens its doors for the first time to the public at 1 p.m. The station at the intersection of Wing and County Roads, in front of the Nelson Amaral town fire station, came together over the last three years.

Refreshments will be served from 1 to 3 p.m. and there will be plenty of firemen on hand to share stories.

Donald R. Billings, 79, a retired firefighter, will be among them. The idea of a museum came together three years ago when Mr. Billings and his friend William (Billy) Norton had the idea to purchase the old No. 2 Oak Bluffs fire truck from a retired fire chief on the mainland for $10,000. The truck had spent close to 50 years on the mainland, touring in Fourth of July parades as far north as New Hampshire. The two men sought to bring the truck home to Oak Bluffs and they raised the money to buy it. Then the idea of building a station to house the 1929 Mack fire truck took root. Firemen from around the Island donated labor, construction materials and expertise to the project. The final boost came in the form of $10,000 from the Community Preservation Act fund.

Firemen reached into their closets and pulled out their oldest firefighting memorabilia and donated it to the museum. What began as one story of an old fire truck grew to many stories.

So it is not just the fire truck, which chased fires until the 1950s, contained in the new museum. The building contains two original firefighting hats made of leather that date back for more than a century. There are old firefighting nozzles that date to horse and buggy days.

On the wall of the museum hangs a brass Gamewell Fire Alarm Tapper that sat in a closet for years. Made of shiny wood and brass parts that look nearly new, the Tapper preceded the telephone and was advanced technology in its day. A series of fire boxes were located around town; if there was a fire, a resident could run to a fire box, break a plate of glass and pull a lever. Through a series of magnets back at the station, a strip of white paper coded the message to trace the location of the fire box.

Box No. 64 is mounted on the front of the museum. Originally the box was located at Eastville avenue and County Road.

There are brass bells, alarms and horns. Mr. Billings has the red and brass original fire alarm bell that hung in the original Oak Bluffs School.

He recalled when the school building caught fire in September 1949.

“I was a junior in high school,” Mr. Billings said. He and a classmate were among the youngest of firemen on the department. “We all came running out of the school and helped fight the fire,” Mr. Billings recalled.

The cause was traced to a cigarette. But what Mr. Billings remembered best was how the teachers and staff were able to get all 200 children out of the school in an orderly fashion, without the children knowing that a fire was burning in the attic. The fire was covered in the Gazette.

More than a dozen trophies from past fire musters decorate the shelves of the museum. Wainscoting covers the lower walls, a detail that harks back to the fire stations of yesterday. Outside, a bench in a shady spot is dedicated to Billy Norton, who died last year.

Mr. Billings has kept track of all the names of people who participated in making the museum a reality. “It is hard to tell how much was donated, because so much of it came in materials and free labor,” he said.

To date the museum project has attracted $62,000 in donations, plus the original $10,000 that was raised to buy the truck. Mr. Billings has set up an escrow account to support the maintenance of the truck. “She runs like a clock,” he said, crediting Willy deBettencourt of Bink’s Auto garage for the maintenance work.

Fire chief Peter Forend had high praise for the work done by Mr. Billings and other firemen. He said the project is a big morale booster for all the firemen. Every Sunday, the firemen gather at the Nelson Amaral fire station for the weekly radio check.

Mr. Billings said his friend would be proud of the museum as it now stands. “He was very good at telling me what needed to be done,” he said. “He remembered everything and I talked to him every day.”

Looking ahead, Mr. Billings plans to work on dating some of the oldest of fire equipment in the museum. He said it is a little like solving a mystery.