Ypsilanti's 1898 Depot Town fire station, now a fire-history museum whose director has invited paranormal investigators to test its ghost story.
110 W Cross St, Ypsilanti, MI 48197
Research updated October 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
$15 adults (13+), $5 children (3-12), free under 3; discounts for seniors, college students, military and public safety personnel.
Access
Accessibility not stated
Not stated by the museum.
Equipment
Photo policy not stated
Est. 1898 · Working Ypsilanti fire station, 1898 to 1975 · Romanesque Revival architecture in Depot Town · Nonprofit museum since 1998
The fire station at 110 W. Cross Street in Ypsilanti's Depot Town was built in 1898 in the Romanesque Revival style and served as a working city firehouse until 1975. Among the firefighters who served there was Chief Alonzo Miller, who led crews through a major fire in 1936.
Howard and Norma Weaver of Ann Arbor bought the decommissioned station in 1998 and opened it that same year as the Michigan Firehouse Museum. The organization incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 1999, and a modern addition in 2002 brought the building's total space to 26,000 square feet. The museum marked its 20th anniversary with a public open house in November 2018.
The collection holds more than 3,600 firefighting artifacts and pieces of apparatus, and the museum draws roughly 6,000 visitors a year. It also runs fire-safety education programs, including merit-badge sessions for scout troops of 45 to 50 boys at a time.
A popular version of local lore holds that Chief Miller died fighting the 1936 fire and now haunts the station he served. Concentrate Media's 2018 reporting found that account inaccurate: Miller died at home in his sleep, not on duty.
Sources
Destination Ann Arbor, the region's tourism bureau, described the museum in an October 2018 blog post as "one of Michigan's most haunted locations." Museum director Al Dyer Jr. told Concentrate Media that same month that a paranormal investigation group from Ohio contacted him shortly after he took the job in 2018 and asked to investigate the building. He said he agreed, adding, "I was ignorant of the whole paranormal investigation culture, but I was curious." That contact led the museum to host its first Para-Con paranormal convention on December 8, 2018, a ticketed event with vendor booths and panel discussions, plus a midnight-to-3-a.m. ghost hunt for VIP ticket holders, with presenters including psychic medium Stephanie Burke and paranormal investigator John E.L. Tenney.
The building's ghost is popularly associated with former fire chief Alonzo Miller, who led crews through a major fire in 1936. Concentrate Media's reporting found the widely repeated claim that Miller died fighting that fire inside the station is inaccurate; he died at home in his sleep in 1936. Ypsilanti authors Crysta K. Coburn and Kay Gray, who host the Haunted Mitten podcast, named the museum as one of the city's two most famous reputedly haunted sites in their 2024 book Ypsilanti Ghosts & Legends, per Concentrate Media's coverage of the book.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Self-guided visits to a working 1898 fire station holding more than 3,600 firefighting artifacts and apparatus. Group tours are available by appointment, and the museum runs fire-safety education sessions for school and scout groups.
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