I came across this article about local whistles by Francele Armstrong in the Gleaner from 4 June 1939 and found it very interesting; then thought I bet Frank Boyett has written about this and what do you know…
Cacophony of whistles kept local workers on time in 1939
by Frank Boyett, Yesterday’s News, Henderson Gleaner, June 1, 2014
It’s a wonder anyone got any sleep back in the old days, with all the toots, bells and whistles going off at all hours of the day and night.
People may not have been sleeping, but they certainly were well-regulated. Just about every major factory in town had a whistle that told workers when it was time to get up, when to go to work, to take a lunch break, and when that break was over, as well as when to go home.
And they weren’t necessarily synchronized.
The whistle from the old cotton mill on Washington Street languished forgotten in a storage room for years before it was discovered and cleaned up by Bill Wyatt.
A story detailing Wyatt’s efforts appears in The Gleaner of July 14, 1956, and I used it as the basis for a column that appeared July 16, 2006.
But I didn’t know the half of it back in 2006. I recently ran across a June 4, 1939, column by Francele Armstrong, which she apparently exhaustively researched to tell the schedule of every whistle operating in town at that point. As well as a few that were no longer operating.
Armstrong wanted to know what was that 6 a.m. whistle that let everyone know they could sleep another hour. Whence came a whistle at 7:30 in the morning? Why a signal at 3 p.m.? Why another at 3:30, another at 4, and sometimes several at 4:30? Why did Oscar Letcher’s siren blow at 5 a.m. several days last summer? Whatever became of the curfew law?
The old curfew law said children 16 and under had to be home by 9 p.m., and the cotton mill’s whistle ensured they knew when 9 p.m. fell. That curfew was sort of forgotten about 1920, about the same time the mill’s original whistle was traded in for a more melodious one.
The cotton mill’s original whistle sometimes called the curly whistle because it was essentially a siren and also known as the wildcat and the mocking bird was an ear-splitter, according to George Cooksey, who was quoted in the 1956 article. It was so loud that it disturbed employees in the plant. It was later used by Anderson Box and Basket Co.
The replacement also was so loud it could be heard for miles into the surrounding countryside; employees had to leave the boiler room and cover their ears when it blew, and many hotel guests bounded from their beds asking Where’s the fire?
Locals, however, accustomed to its blasts at 7, 12, 1 and 4 went calmly on their ways, rising, eating, working and quitting by its 80-pound (per square inch) steam blast.
Armstrong ran into some trouble when she went to the Nicholson coal mine, where the whistle blew at 6 a.m., noon, 12:45 and 3:30.
When she asked why they blew at those times, Foreman Red Waples answered, They used to blow to signal the miners whether to come to work next day.
“What are the signals?” Armstrong asked.
Well, we don’t use them any more, Waples replied, acknowledging that inertia accounted for most of the signals.
I guess when you’ve got a whistle that loud, it must be hard to refrain from pulling the cord just for the fun of it.
Here is a rundown of other local factory whistles that were in use in 1939:
Eckert Meat Packing: The 6 a.m. whistle was a call to work, 12 and 1 were for lunch, and 3 p.m. to go home.
Delker Bros.: Whistles blew at 7 a.m., noon, 1, 4 and 5.
American Nicotine Co.: Workers were called to work at 7:30 a.m., and their 30-minute lunch break sounded at noon and 12:30, while the day ended at 5 p.m., except on Fridays, when quitting time was 4 p. m.
Imperial Tobacco: The whistle blew at 6:50 a.m., 7, noon, 12:50 and 1 p.m. Factory engineer George J. Jake said the tobacco plant’s unique whistle was actually the result of two individual whistles, one the firm had always owned and another obtained from the old American Tobacco factory on South Main Street.
Factory officials feared the two might not harmonize, but they turned out to be in pleasing harmony and now form a nice twotoned chime for Imperial.
Henderson Brewery: Its whistle ceased blowing about 18 months previous to the appearance of Armstrong’s article.
Bear Brand: The sock factory that took over the old cotton mill building in 1937 also abolished its whistle, although it’s not clear how many whistles the cotton mill had. Two of them ended up at the Henderson County Historical and Genealogical Society. Another 57-pounder made by the American Steam Gauge and Valve Manufacturing Co. of Boston went home with Bill Wyatt in 1956, who bought it for a dollar. That must have been the one that blasted people out of their beds.
Henry Pope once explained to an Evansville businessman why the plant no longer whistled its employees to work, according to Armstrong’s article: We don’t blow whistles any more in our industry. In Bear Brand, we just start to work and keep on going.