50-year-old relic of Pines’ fire department found in antique store 300 miles away
A 1970s corded landline would not stop most in their tracks, but when vintage phone collector Rey Salabarria spotted one in an Ocala antique store eight years ago, it was a jackpot find.
Its red Bakelite patina and dial-less face are a rarity in the antiques world and instantly identified its previous home — a firehouse.
On its front was a small handwritten note, “Pem. Pines F.D.,” so the 69-year-old former Palm Beach County Deputy called his friend Dave Stewart, 71, a retired Gainesville fireman he knew would appreciate its value.
“I showed the phone to Dave because he dabbles in antiques ... and he said, ‘You know I worked there ... this was a phone I used to pick up all the time.’ And I said ‘You’re kidding me,’” Salabarria told the Pembroke Pines News on Dec. 11.
Unknown to Salabarria, the landline was the Pembroke Pines Fire Department’s first emergency dispatch phone, manned by Stewart in the ‘70s and lost for decades before being reunited with the agency Dec. 10.
“Now, thanks to both Rey and Lt. Stewart, this piece of history has found its way back home,” PPFD wrote on Instagram Dec. 11 to announce the phone’s return.
Stewart’s history with the original emergency phone dates back to May of 1975, when he first joined the agency — then the Pembroke Pines Volunteer Fire Department — as a pro bono dispatcher at Fire Station #1, now Station 33 at North Perry Airport.
He was one of several firefighters responsible for taking evening calls from residents who would directly contact the station through a seven-digit number, before 911 services were integrated into its protocol. Those manning the landline, which was staffed 24/7, were required to answer before the third ring.
Once it was determined whether a medical or fire emergency was on hand, units were sent out while the dispatcher stayed behind to timestamp every detail — when a call was placed, when a truck arrived — for the incident report.
“Usually the rookies had to answer the phone, because the veterans pulled rank on you, “ Stewart told the Pembroke Pines News on Dec. 11. “They weren’t getting up in the middle of the night to answer the phone until you rang the bell.”
The next time he’d hold the phone was in 2019, after Salabarria spent over a year and a half negotiating with a vendor from the Ole Cracker House Antique Mall — where the landline was found — to bring down the landline’s original price of $150 to $75.
The antiquer admitted it was hard to part with the collector’s item, but chose to gift it to Stewart, who Salabarria says “this really belongs to.”
After storing it at his Ocala home for six years, Stewart contacted PPFR’s Divison Chief of Training Ernie Spreitzer through a mutual friend and made the five-hour trip south to return it.
“He just shared with me that the phone got back home and he has a picture with the chief and everything,” Salabarria said. “That is so cool, man. That is so cool.”
What became of the phone in the decades since it was last spotted, or how it traveled 300 miles north, is still unknown to Stewart, Salabarria and the Pembroke Pines Fire Department.
Now back home, it’ll remain at Station 33, with Stewart saying that talks of ordering a plaque detailing its history and someday incorporating it into a city museum are underway.
The mystery, the former lieutenant added, has done nothing to hamper the landline from being welcomed back “as a celebrity.”
