Originally named the William S Gratton, the Edward M. Cotter was built in 1900 and is believed to be the oldest operating fire boat in the world. It has served Buffalo for the entirety of that time except for a period in the late 1920s when it was gutted by a fire from an oil barge and a period of repair and maintenance in the 1950s. The boat was notably used in 1960 to aid fire crews in Port Colborne, Ontario, in what is said to be the first instance of a U.S. fire boat crossing an international border to assist in a foreign country.