Curfew sirens make a comeback in small towns

Wednesday, 08 September 2010 01:53

Written by Bailout Main Street Now

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Curfew sirens make a comeback in small towns

It's a sound that stopped generations of youth across the country in their tracks and marked the conclusion of a night of outdoor fun. The wailing of a curfew siren, usually from the local fire hall, was for many years a tradition in small towns across the USA. "When that siren went off, it was 10 p.m. and curfew. No matter where you were, you were beating feet to get home," said Rick Olson, who grew up in Montello, Wis., a town about 100 miles northwest of Milwaukee. Olson spent his boyhood adhering to the curfew siren.

Today, that nightly siren endures, and Olson, 40 — Montello's police chief — enforces it.

In an era of cellphones, curfew whistles have disappeared in many places, but in a few small towns, the siren is making a comeback. In a small Pennsylvania borough, the nightly noise has prompted a community debate between those who wish to keep the tradition and those who'd prefer peace and quiet.

• In Whitefish, Mont., a town of 8,400 near the Canadian border, the curfew siren began sounding in 1919. It blew at 10 p.m. nightly since 1944 but was silenced last year when the town's volunteer fire department went to full-time staffing and began sleeping at the fire hall, mere feet from the siren, Mayor Mike Jenson said.

When the fire department moved to a new emergency services center in April, the City Council agreed to bring back the siren, Jenson said.

"It's more of a tradition," he said. "We're trying to make sure we don't lose that small-town fabric. I think the siren is part of that."

• In Martin, S.D., a small town 80 miles southeast of Rapid City, a curfew whistle blew since the early 1960s, then went silent about 10 years ago, former mayor Cindy York said. In June, the Martin City Council agreed to reinstitute a 10 p.m. curfew, complete with a siren.

"We hope to get some of the younger kids off the street, to stop some of the gangs and graffiti — all that stuff that happens after 10 p.m.," said York, who left the mayor position in July."

• In Proctor, Minn., pop. 2,800, the curfew was marked with a steam whistle on railroad property when it started in the 1940s, then a siren in 1950, Mayor Stephen Anderson said.

"In 1950, there were complaints because people were used to the steam whistle," he said.

The curfew siren isn't needed to mark the hour, Anderson admits. "So many of the kids have cellphones now; they know what time it is. But the curfew siren is an accepted part of life in Proctor. If it disappeared, you'd have people complaining. It's a comforting sound to lifelong residents."

The sound of the curfew siren in Palmerton, Pa., isn't so comforting to Kathleen Rehrig, 60, who lives within 200 yards of it.

The siren in the borough 80 miles north of Philadelphia blows to mark the noon hour — a vestige of the shift-change whistle at the old zinc factory that was central to the community — and again nightly at 10 p.m. weekdays and 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays to note the curfew.

"As we're sitting on the porch on a summer's evening, and 10 o'clock comes around, and the dogs start barking and the babies start screaming, it's not very pleasant," said Rehrig, who's lived in the borough all her life.

Rehrig, her husband, Glenn, and her son and neighbor, Seth, have circulated postcard petitions in the borough of 5,200 residents in recent months, trying to get the curfew whistle silenced.

"It's turned into a bit of a battle in Palmerton," Kathleen Rehrig said. "It's a siren. People have gotten emotional about it. I can't work up any nostalgia for a 140-decibel siren at 10 p.m."

Another longtime Palmerton resident, Andy Jordan — who lives even closer to the siren than Rehrig — is circulating petitions to keep it.

"I believe it's part of our culture in this town," he said. "It's part of the pattern of your life."

Matheny reports for The (Palm Springs, Calif.) Desert Sun.