Mysterious T-Bolt 111
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History of the Hoover Appliances HOR and others

Sat Aug 09, 2014 6:57 pm

Wanting to see if I could get some more in-depth info of a neighboring city's (North Canton, Ohio) CD and old sirens, I've struck some luck.

Here is what I could grab at this moment while observing and reading through snippets of public archived newspapers while in a tired mood, so bear with me.

From the start, the village of North Canton had only a single fire siren in use, likely not for civil defense purposes yet. A known date has not been discovered of when they purchased this fire siren. It would make sense that it would be a Sterling M*10 that they still have. The siren was originally mounted on top of the roof of village hall (assuming now the municipal city hall). Quite a few more articles mention the fire siren, but will not further mention it.

In 1957, it was mentioned that the city received two additional fire sirens, as part of a exclusive system it appears. I don't know what model these were, and sure enough at the articles' aforementioned locations they are long gone. The remaining Sterling is 8/16 port and is still used. Perhaps it was some gnarly Sterling fire system.

In the same year CD workers applied for civil defense matching funds, allowing them to purchase a bigger siren, only intended for air raid/CD purposes only. They bought the infamous HOR SuperSirex, and interestingly enough, was originally painted yellow (versus the current color state while its rotting up on a roof). I have no clue what chopper port ratio this one has. This appears to have been the then-village's only siren as part of a network, though I recall correctly from browsing, there was mentioning for wanting additional sirens it looks like. I have no idea about the later either, as pretty much the only remains are the SuperSirex. It also looks like they originally wanted it on the village hall too, but later wanted it higher up.

The SuperSirex did rotate and was a 10HP unit, but the unit itself would not be erected until 1960, having sitting in the garages in crates. It would then be put up on the Hoover Appliances Building, of which where it still stands but silent. This was done as a vantage point for everyone in the village and there some to hear.

The drills for the siren would be 1 minute Alert, silence for 1 minute, and then 1 minute "warbling" (otherwise known as attack/wail).

Later on in 1975, the city officials realized that there was a need for a tornado plan. This would then call for testing of the siren as part of this "tornado alert plan" and what appears to have been when they set the standard First Monday of the Month at Noon. This testing however said to last three minutes (the police department page lists 1 minute, though the first and last time I was there they tested three minutes...go figure). What looks like before that were random conducted drills, announced in newspaper.

It appeared that the siren was double purpose siren and was now also a tornado siren, as they still referred to it as an air-raid siren.

I'm not sure what happened after that. This is where the research stops abruptly. I'm not sure when they starting phasing out this system, or if more sirens were added after the HOR. What I can tell you is what the Police Department told me, "As far as I can recall, sirens were in place for civil defense (like during the cold war era). Starting in 1998, they have seen continuous functional upgrades." This probably when they transitioned to a updated system (which again, little info on too, other than that originally there where two (possibly three?) WPS-4000 series sirens, a Hornet, the existing Sterling*M10, and a 2001-SRN?) I have yet to check on the later on determining of its age. Of course for some strange reason the city replaced those 4000s in favor of 2001-130s.

There are some attached cropped out articles. Please adjust your page zoom size accordingly. All credit given to: Ohio Memory and contributors.
CDSirenInstalled.jpg
PearlDayTest.jpg
Plan.jpg
Propose.jpg
Storage.jpg
WantingSirenVillage.jpg

Of course, you are welcomed to search for more about via the website http://www.ohiomemory.com. There are quite a lot of scanned papers, but chronologically are unsorted making it difficult. I'm sure there's more I'm missing, but this is my basic understanding. It may seem still broken history, but I'm still going after more.

That is what I can sum up for now.

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Re: History of the Hoover Appliances HOR and others

Sat Aug 09, 2014 9:26 pm

Wow. Very thorough research and a very interesting read. Kudos to you my good man. I love reading about anything to do with a super sirexs. Weird that it's a 10HP unit yet it rotates, I thought they were only 25?
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Re: History of the Hoover Appliances HOR and others

Tue Aug 12, 2014 1:31 pm

Could it possibly be the kind that is in Hamilton OH?
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Mysterious T-Bolt 111
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Re: History of the Hoover Appliances HOR and others

Tue Aug 12, 2014 2:38 pm

Chicagosiren-hunters wrote:Could it possibly be the kind that is in Hamilton OH?
Likely, but I think that is the only up close photo of it that anyone will see of it. It is a single-horn design though. Could anyone assist in listing the available port ratios that were offered to their rotating sirens?

Also about their Sterling fire siren. From looking at records, it is apparent that this one goes as far back as 1923!

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Re: History of the Hoover Appliances HOR and others

Mon Oct 27, 2014 4:19 am

Sorry for the bump, but here is a street view of that HOR on the Hoover factory in its current state:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.8759602 ... e0!6m1!1e1
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Mysterious T-Bolt 111
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Re: History of the Hoover Appliances HOR and others

Tue Oct 28, 2014 12:33 am

After a brief two-ish month hiatus, I'll update this forgotten thread of mine:

Surely and ironically enough, earlier today I got a chance to talk to one of my uncles whom worked at that factory from the 80s to pretty much when Hoover ceased operations there about that siren.

He does remember hearing that siren how it would get louder then quieter and how it would sound the first Monday of the month at noon (of course this was way after that scheduled test date was enacted).

99% sure that thing isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I noticed this siren facing the same position since 2005-6 which led me to think it didn't rotate or was decommissioned, and was the later of course after talking about it several years back with the PD and having the chief gave me a list of siren locations.

Still have no other history to present about this very SuperSirex, other than the possibility of the chopper maybe being 7/10, having that the siren was purchased with Civil Defense matching funds at the time. When I was conversing about the siren I presented him (my uncle) an example video (of the one in Hamilton, OH) and he was shaking his head in a "yep" formation as like he was remembering/agreeing about that shrilling sound.

I will try to contact the North Canton Heritage Society and see if they can dig up any more information about fire and CD paraphernalia and anything about the newer sirens (such as historic images, newspaper images, or other relevant information.)

Still when ever I can, I do try digging further into those archives, but again, they aren't sorted the best to say the least, in which I don't blame the contributors/staff for how many pages there are. In the past week I thought I saw either on the archives website itself or on another that they are in the process of also including post 1995 papers. I would definitely love to learn more on the other fire sirens.

Looking at results from the paid Akron Beacon Journal archives, looks to give promising information about the purchase of the newer sirens, but again, money to spend reading those and I'm not made out of gold.

When this information would become available, if I haven't forgotten about this thread again, will I try to include a more visual friendly timeline.

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Re: History of the Hoover Appliances HOR and others

Mon May 29, 2017 7:31 pm

Sorry for this big bump...not sure if anyone was aware of this, but updated street view imagery in September 2016 shows that the Sirex No. 10 is sadly gone :cry:

Again, sorry if I am bringing up information already known, but I don't recall hearing about it being gone before.

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