It was in 1909 that the City proudly bought the six cylinder Mitchell touring car, an early day type without a top. Old timers used glowing words to describe its striking appearance. The hood was long and the tonneau (long low body) was accentuated by its red paint. Chief Walden came in one day and announced that he had purchased a gas buggy, and informed one of his men that he had named him as the driver of the new fangled contraption. Every fireman in the Department shied at the horrible looking thing as the Chief "led" it into the station and the man who had been told to drive the machine was downright scared of the wagon that spat at you every time you got near it. Wichita's first motor-driven fire equipment received the "horse laugh" from the entire fire company. They hooted at it generally and vowed in particular they would never be caught riding on the thing. The first time you drive the thing out in the snow, you will have to walk back to the station and get a team to pull it back to its stall, Chief Walden was told. Its service record was honorable and noisy. It did incur criticism at first by crowding the picturesque horse and buggy out of the picture, but the car put an end to the monthly requistions for hay and feed for the Chief's horse, Ginger.

Among the many stories told about the old car, probably the one repeated the most, was the one about Chief Walden and his driver turning the corner of Main and William on two wheels while responding to a fire call out of old Central Station. Witnesses said the car swung around the corner wildly with the Chief's face getting whiter the more it swerved. The Chief blamed the big wheels on the two-wheel turn and had them cut to a smaller size. Another story told, was when the Chief's driver walked into the station one day and started the engine, as it was the custom to see that everything was in working order, the motor sputtered and the driver remarked to Walden, "Well, I guess one cylinder is missing." Walden said "Good gosh, (or words to that effect), I didn't lose it somewhere, did I?" That story doubled up firemen in a knot of laughter for months after it started to be told. One other story as told by Captain Bayer, who at one time drove horse and buggy for the Chief, was when he first got the car. "Chief Walden was learning to drive and often drove it home for practice. One day when the Chief was at home, we had a fire at Kansas and Douglas and we were all there when we heard the Mitchell sputtering down the street. It was a sight, the Chief was wearing the white colonel-style hat he always affected, and if he was going a mile an hour he was making 40 miles. As he passed us like a streak, we could hear him yelling, "Whoa," "Whoa"."