A few years later, the steam-powered electric light plant was constructed on the west shore of Lake Como, long since drained and now Yocom Park. A siren was installed there, taking advantage of this new-fangled source of power.
The bell remained in use and the siren's wail was added to it --- when someone managed to get down to the light plant and set it off.
That combination happened during the early morning hours of a mid-January night in 1904. The fire, just a block west of the fire station, was extinguished quickly. The siren, however, managed somehow to get stuck in "on" position.
And that, apparently, came close to driving the editor of The Chariton Herald --- Sam Greene --- nearly nuts. Here's how Sam reported the incident in his edition of Jan. 14 under the headline, "Fire Whistle Worse Than a Fire" ---
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The old siren fire whistle on the electric light plant has been limbered up this week for use as a fire alarm again, and last night about one o'clock it had a chance to show what it could do. A small blaze at the Renshaw house, just north of the south school building, was reported, and the fire bell called out the department.
The siren whistle joined in, and for a quarter of an hour split the air with the most heart-rendering, soul-distressing, fear-inspiring, mind-destroying caterwaulering that it has ever been our misfortune to have to listen to. It was really worse than the fire itself, for that was extinguished in a few minutes by the department. But the whistle could not apparently be extinguished.
If the mythical sirens who tried to lure Ulysses from his ship to their fatal shores made such music as that siren whistle did last night we don't blame him a bit for stuffing wax in his hears and tying himself to the mast. He would have gone crazy sure if he hadn't.
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