Civil Defense Siren - Defunct Manufacturers

Defunct Manufacturers

• CLM Industries – A Canadian company which produced warning sirens during the Cold War. They have a distinctive appearance, with one enormous horn and a smaller, rectangular horn above it. The smaller horn was connected to a rear rotor, added on to comply with Canadian regulations requiring a dual-tone siren for civil defence. One was most famously featured in the 1980 Chicago-based film The Blues Brothers, used as a vehicle-mounted PA system, although in real life Chicago used Federal Thunderbolt sirens. Toronto has removed the majority of these sirens. There was also a vertical version available, with only 2 known to still exist.

• SoundMaster Signals Inc. – was a siren company that manufactured sirens similar to Alerting Communications of America (ACA), which then became American Signal. SoundMaster started producing sirens based on plans designed by ACA and sold them to municipalities across the midwest. The company fell apart when owner/founder Jim Morgan died in the early 1970s. The discontinuation of the particular motors used by SoundMaster, mainly due to icing defects, added to the company's demise. Very few SoundMaster sirens still exist. They made five different kinds of outdoor sirens, including a version in which a directional horn rotated around a stationary siren. SoundMasters were once numerous in Wisconsin, and throughout the midwest at one point in time. Iron Ridge, WI and Browntown, WI have operating units.

• Fosters Engineering- A Newark, New Jersey company, made steam sirens in the 1940s, which required a supply of steam or compressed air to operate. Every city that ordered from the company would get 19 sirens for a system.

• Clayton - A Daytona Beach, Florida, siren manufacturer that made the Clayton Whirlwind.

• Harrington - Makers of a 2V8 siren used to fill in "gaps" in siren systems in the north-eastern United States.

• CTI Siren - Oklahoma-based siren manufacturer. Three models are known to exist and can be found in Oklahoma.

• Toshiba - The company is still in business, but no longer manufactures its unusual omni-directional, compressor-charged siren.

• Decot - A Wisconsin-based manufacturer of fire sirens as early as the 1910s. They also produced CD sirens in their later days. Defunct since the 1950s, they invented one of the first dual-tone sirens around the 1910s.

• Erick - A Minnesota-based manufacturer, started in the 1920s and liquidated around the 1950s. Although the sirens were intended for fire-department use, they were also suitable for warning of air raids and nuclear attacks. These types can be found in the Midwest.

• Dillon Box Iron Works Co. - A Denver, Colorado-based company that produced Iron and steel throughout the late 1800s. They began supplying the local mines with tools ad equipment, and later entered the business of making municipal goods. They built the "Denver Siren," Pat. by William A. Box, a large siren that was sold by the Hendie & Bolthoff Mfg. and Supply Co. as early as 1913 until the 1930s. These sirens used a centrifugal clutch connected to a 5 HP motor, usually a Century or Westinghouse motors. These distinctive sirens had one or two large, open-ended, double sided, 20-port rotors connected by a long shaft to the motor and mounted to a common horizontal or vertical frame. Later models had a "window frame grill" bolted to the stator, most likely to keep birds from nesting in the rotor. Due to their weight, (the largest being nearly 6 feet long and 2 feet wide, made completely of iron) they were usually mounted on top of high buildings rather than poles. An article from "Electrical Review and Western Electrician" once stated when tested the local official departments received calls from as far as several miles from people wondering what the cause of the noise was. Few of the sirens still exist and only a handful of these are still in use.

• W.S. Darley and Co - Made sirens using Federal sirens with custom-made housings labeled "Darley Champion Siren." In the 1980s, Darley changed over to selling surplus ACA sirens. They currently sell Sentry sirens.

• Sparton Corporation - A Brookesville, Florida manufacturer (formerly Sparks-Withington Co of Jackson, Michigan, whose engineers produced the first all-electric horn for cars in 1911.) Made 2-HP 4-port sirens. Their sirens were very compact in size, resembling a louvered vertical cylinder, and were mainly seen around fire departments.

• H.O.R. - A New York based company that started around 1930. They made vertical sirens 3, 5, and 7.5 HP. They also produced the "Super Sirex", a large, double-ended siren usually available in single tone, dual tone, and rotating versions with a 50 Hp. motor. Their dual-tone sirens had 7 and 10 ports, producing the infamous "Devil's interval" of a diminished fifth, or tritone. They went out of business by the 1950s.

• B&M Siren Mfg. Co.- A Los Angeles, California based company that started out in 1913 making sirens for Police and Fire vehicle use. Later produced the B&M Firehouse Siren, a Siren that resembled a horizontal British siren with an unusual 12-14 port ratio. B&M Siren Mfg Co. is still in business today producing two models of vehicle siren: the Super-Chief and the Siro-Drift.