The Twelve O'clock Whistle
 

Okay, you old folks...who recalls the Twelve O'clock Whistle? Every single city or town had the twelve o'clock whistle and we all heard it daily. It was usually a siren and not a whistle, but it blared and could be heard for miles. It was so loud that we often jumped, but we knew what it was. It was officially noon. It might have not actually have been noon, but it was close enough. Every man in town would take out his pocket watch and set it to noon. Business owners would set the clock on their wall to noon. House wives would set the clock on the kitchen to noon. That way everybody in town worked off of the same time whether it was right or not. It was right for them. One could hear the sound of the twelve o'clock whistle for miles. To me, it meant that someone in government was watching over for us. It told us the time.

I cannot recall when the twelve o'clock whistle stopped wailing. I think in the seventies sometime. The time was told to us by something in space. I miss that whistle tho. I caused us to do something together. To set the time, so that we could all get along.

There was a plant in our town . It was called “Kentucky Flooring” then anyway I dunno about noon but they would blow a steam whistle at quitting time . They used boilers for the dry kilns . They also had a big big stationary steam engine . Anyway when they went to replace to of the old hand fired boilers with a new water tube auto fired boiler I ended up with the whistle :whistle:

We live in the country, a rural setting for sure. Our post office, and therefore mailing address, is the small town of Greentop, population 388. We are actually in another county and it causes all kinds of grief with who provides our fire protection (but that’s another story). The town has a post office and “city building” (a one room affair). Our only business, a bar, recently closed down. There is a guy who sells night crawlers from his garage.

Every day, at 12:02, the town siren blows. Unless the wind is strong from the West, we can hear it. We’d never hear the warning in a storm, but it’s a constant reminder to me that I love my rural life in a place that is known for deer and turkey hunting and not much else.

I sure miss the “Noontime Whistle” that used to blow in Saint Johnsbury Vt. about ten miles away and over two ridges from deer camp there in the North East Kingdom.
I never knew if the actual whistle was in the St. J rail-yard down by the river on Railroad Ave or maybe at the Purina plant there… but my better guess is that it was at the Fairbanks Scale plant about a mile closer to camp.
We couldn’t hear it every day, the weather being the deciding factor but some days it was like it came from one on the dairy farms that were only a couple of miles from us in the direction of St. J… but now those dairy farms are gone too. “Pat” Patterson owned and operated the closer farm and when I was about 8 my Dad brought me there and Pat was milking his cows by hand. Pat looked up at me and said “Open your mouth boy.” so I opened up just in time to catch a stream of warm delicious milk. Two barn cats were sitting there waiting their turn.

…all sadly gone to memories now.





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In my childhood town, Rockville, Maryland, the town siren could be heard at noon every day, from our house more than 1 1/2 miles from the firehouse.

In Canton Mass. the fire dept had a horn at the fire house that was used to call in off duty fire fighters in case of a large fire. Using a series of blasts to signify the box number they knew where to go. Also blew one blast at noon each day. The advent of pagers did away with the need for it but they continued the noon blast until it broke down.

Same in Danvers Mass where I grew up Dan. But it was the big yellow tri-coned air raid siren.





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On the refrigerator was a list of what the blasts meant. Our area was 614.

Ah...such fond memories of the "slow-time" horns in my home town. What a fascinating system, most made by the Gamewell Company, beginning in the mid 1800's. The old fire alarm boxes were mechanical wonders that, when you pulled the handle on a street box to report a fire it caused a brass wheel with cogs on it to turn. A coiled spring caused the cog to open a circuit then punch holes in a tape that ran between 2 spools in the fire house. It also rang the bells inside the station in a sequence determined by the cogs on the wheel. So the firefighters could count the sequence of holes in the tickertape or listen to the bells. The photo shows a wheel the would have tapped out box # 2164. Then the firefighter looked at the chart to see the location of box 2164.
The first firehouse I was assigned to, built in the late 1800's had a 120' tower for hanging wet hose. On top of the tower was a huge bell and two large horns fed by air from two massive presurized air tanks at the bottom of the tower. A special mechanism used to convert the "fast-time" of the bells tapping out to "slow-time" for the air horns. Those horns were punishing to the ears if you were within several hundred yards. Ours sounded 2 blasts at 8am and 5pm every week day. Children, not expecting the blast, would drop their lunch boxes, scared to death on their way to school in the morning.
These boxes were mechanical wonders, very similar to the telegraph and worked whether it was 100 degrees and humid or -20 F and dry.

We too are very rural. Our local VFD is in Springville and 3 1/2 miles away. Every day at noon it's horn still wails out the noontime whistle.