Question - noon whistles

[rurallib]

As we were waiting for the noon kickoff for our version of the march I was chatting with a woman from Chicago. The town we were in is @70,000 having grown from a pup of @ 20,000 after WWII.

The noon whistle blew and she was startled. Almost everyone around her said "The noon whistle." She said "What is that? I have never heard of such a thing."

I offered that in a city the size of Chicago there probably never was such a thing, but in our area most every town has a noon whistle. Actually an 8AM, noon, 1PM and 5PM whistle to correspond to the times to go to work, go to lunch, return from lunch and go home at the end of the work day.

So I got to wondering just how common are the town whistles? Is it normal for them to sound for the 'normal' (back in the day I guess) workday? Do some just toot for noon
And finally, how big or small does a city or town have to be to not have a whistle?

I actually live in a town of @ 3500 and we definitely have a noon whistle, but I don't think we have the others. But then it is just so much background noise sometimes.

Does anyone know where the idea of towns blowing the whistles came from?

[underpants]

1. Factory towns - lunch break

http://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/wtf-why-do-some-towns-blow-a-loud-whistle-at-noon/Content?oid=2140992

[rurallib]

2. thanks for the quick response

the other question I had they sort of answered which is - why do we still have them?

it has been probably 5 decades since I knew of anyone working 8 - 12 and 1 - 5.

[underpants]

5. Tradition

Like church bells. I,lived in a neighborhood in Richmond with a bell that chimes every hour. No need for it but they still did it. Automated I would guess.

[rurallib]

8. damn i am stealing your sig line

for some reason it just really struck me as very profound right now.

Agree about tradition, but am kind of surprised someone young mavericky town leader wouldn't try to do away with it these days. No doubt it is pretty much a tradition in cities and towns across the country.

[underpants]

13. Have at it

Damn I need to put a space in there after the -.

I've had that for a,loooong time. The first part is Superman (no I don't have a complex). The second part is something I came up when I was running a lot.

Back to the subject
You try to change something like that and they'll come out of the woodwork raising hell.

[Best_man23]

3. Could be tornado siren test

Some communities test their storm sirens on Saturdays.

[rurallib]

4. but they would move it away from noon to avoid confusion.

No - this is on going - since I have lived with it all my life it has just been background noise until the lady from Chicago was so surprised by it.

[SCantiGOP]

20. I just remembered my paranoia from childhood

Born in 1951, I was in grade school when we had the "duck and cover" exercises and practiced for evacuation from the school when the missiles were on the way.
Every Saturday at noon they would test the air raid sirens. My fear was that the Soviets would be clever enough to launch their attack at noon on Saturday and we wouldn't know to duck and cover!

[liberal N proud]

6. I grew up in a small rural, Iowa town, we had one

Went off every day except Saturday.

It doubled as the tornado alert and fire whistle for the volunteer Fire Department.

[rurallib]

10. ours whistle serves multi purposes, but the town tries to make sure

that tests never occur such that they would be confused with the nooner.

[Kilgore]

7. I live in a mill town

and hear not only the noon whistle, but also the weekly emergency and evacuation siren test. A nit unnerving if you have not heard it before.

[randr]

9. Aspen used to have a few decades ago

Uppity people got mad at being woken up a noon and put the kabosh on it.

[rurallib]

12. !

[Yonnie3]

11. I worked the counter at a large laundry many years ago.

They had a big steam plant and blew that whistle four times a day. The building is long gone, it's an intersection now. I think it went away in the mid 70's. I always like the way it sort of cleared its throat before it really screamed. There was a whistle at another operation, either the woolen mills or a fabric factory, but they stopped in the late '60s. Neither was a service of the city.

In my home town they had a large siren on the town's water tower that was used to call in the volunteer firemen. They ran close to noon (except Sunday) as a test. It could be heard several miles away. When they got more radios in the early '60s, they did away with the tests. The siren was run by the city, but not as a time keeper for the citizens.

[pinboy3niner]

14. My town was so small all we had was a tricycle bell

[jodymarie aimee]

15. Stevens Point, WI here

ours blows at 11AM on Saturdays. I was told it was the changing of the shift at the paper mill. The dogs go batshit crazy.

[rurallib]

16. ah yes the dogs - how rght you are.

[True Dough]

17. That's what I immediately recalled

My wife and I lived in a small town that used to have a noon siren. Our German shepherd would start howling every weekday when it sounded.

[rug]

18. My town is 1104 people.

The Presbyterian Church bells ring at noon. Give or take three minutes.

[wishstar]

19. Many tiny Upstate NY towns in rural farming areas still have noon whistles

There were some canning factories but mostly people working on surrounding farms and orchards on agricultural pursuits....

The church in my NC neighborhood has wonderful noon chimes playing every day.