Laramie’s steam whistles—destroying the quiet But signaling jobs and economic prosperity
Before reading this, one might consider searching for the sound of a steam whistle—especially the ear-splitting ones that can be found through a Google search for “factory whistle sound effects.” Then for a bit of nostalgia, hear “steam locomotive whistle” on YouTube. I had that playing as I composed these lines. Though one rail fan spoke for many in saying it was “the best sound ever,” I’ll admit that after a while I had had enough.
Disturbing the peace
Most of us have no idea what it was like to live in Laramie during the era of steam engines. It wasn’t just the whistles of the steam locomotives disturbing the peace; it was the whistles from all the steam-powered factories of Laramie. In many cases the whistles blew to summon workers to their jobs, or to give warnings, but one suspects that sometimes the whistle was blown just because it was there.
Now, those who usually hear only the reassuring chimes from the clock tower on St. Matthew’s also note the occasional blasts of a diesel locomotive horn and the backup noise of a piece of heavy equipment—reminders that work is being done. The distant hum of traffic on Interstate 80 is something that nearby residents probably can “tune out,” if they are lucky. But there is no tuning out the whistle of a steam engine.
Letting off steam
All steam engines need to vent steam that has already done its work and passed through the engine. “Blowing off steam” is necessary—sometimes it is let off through a separate stack that emits clean white steam that quickly dissipates and is a good place for a steam whistle. Sometimes the steam goes into a smokestack with the effluent from the fuel being burned, not a good place for a whistle.
The British Museum asserts that a British engineer, Adrian Stephens, around 1835, invented the steam whistle. An employee of an ironworks factory, he devised it to warn engineers when a steam boiler was running out of water, which could lead to an explosion. Though he never patented it, his device was “added to every boiler, railway locomotive and steam ship around the world,” according to the museum’s publication titled: “A History of The World.”
Thus the first steam whistle served a useful function and saved lives and property. Wikipedia has a list of about 100 famous steam engine explosions worldwide. Among lives lost, the greatest tragedy ever was the explosion of the riverboat Sultana in the Mississippi River in April of 1865. Its decks were crowded with weakened and emaciated Civil War soldiers and repatriated former Confederate prisoners of war—1,800 died from the explosion itself or drowning.
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) was funded in 1880 mainly as a response to the need for better boiler safety standards. Now there are gauges that automatically alter the operation of steam engines to avoid explosions or equipment damage. Deadly boiler explosions still happen; the most recent was reported in a St. Louis, Missouri factory; it killed four workers in 2017.
Laramie’s explosion
Before these standards were implemented, Laramie’s most catastrophic boiler explosion happened at the Union Pacific’s Rolling Mills, about where Safeway Plaza is located today. On March 23, 1876, nine men were killed outright, and the community was devastated. Later, the factory employed around 350 men working around the clock, though we don’t know the exact number at the time of the explosion. Later, a fire destroyed the mill in 1910 and it was not rebuilt.
Luckily the 1876 explosion was at 4:30 a.m. and involved only one of the “10 or 12 boilers” as the newspaper reported, or there might have been more casualties. It “jarred the houses throughout the northern part of the city like the shock of an earthquake,” the Laramie Sentinel newspaper reported the next day.
The local hospital, St. Joseph’s, operated by the Sisters of Charity, was overwhelmed treating the injured. Churchwomen formed sewing groups to make clothing for the many widowed and orphaned families. Men in other trades raised funds to provide relief. No doubt some families needed assistance with burial expenses—this was before the city-owned Greenhill Cemetery existed.
Steam whistle apologist
Thirty-six years later, after that tragedy was all but forgotten, G.A. Cook (1862-1934) was the city editor of the Laramie Republican newspaper. In the first issue of the paper to mark the new year of 1922 (on January 2nd) he listed with pride all the places in Laramie that had steam whistles.
Cook wrote: “Perhaps in no community of 8,500 or 9,000 people are there more whistles than in Laramie. There are the deep, hoarse, resonant kind, which one may feel, rather than hear, for mile after mile across this fertile valley, and also of the screechy kind, that make the cold chills play an Epsom Down [British racecourse] tune up and down one’s spinal column and cause one to turn over and snuggle down a little deeper into the wooly blankets and smooth sheets.”
Among the places that Cook mentions as sources of steam whistle blasts were Laramie’s laundries, the Midwest and Standard Oil refineries along the Laramie River north of town, and the Union Pacific Railroad (UPRR) tie plant. Others in 1922 that he mentions include the three plaster mills—and the UPRR ice plant.
These are far overshadowed by the “coarse, hoarse bellow of the great whistle at the Union Pacific shops,” as Cook wrote. He guessed that it was the first to greet the sleeper at around 6 o’clock in the morning. It was soon followed by “the sound-carrying thunder from the Midwest refinery.”
But all this, according to Cook, is “to say nothing of scores of locomotive whistles that bellow forth their various and varying sounds every day—trains coming and going, switch engines in the yards, signals to this and that man, for this and that purpose, one blast, two blasts, three blasts and sometimes, if one gets on the track and gets careless about getting off, a dozen or more hair raising, chill chasing, revivifying and hastening blasts.”
It’s all good
From this, you might think that Cook was bemoaning the existence of the steam whistle. Far from it, he goes into this litany of the minor annoyances to encourage Laramie residents to thank their lucky stars that they have these reminders of industry. The steam whistle is occasionally a “satanic screech,” he admits but it “represents a necessity, and one that means necessary activity and necessary expansion.”
“One has to listen, for that is what the whistle is made for,” says Cook about the noise. But “each signal blown thereon means some economic problem solved for the moment.” He adds, “It may be someone else to whom the steam whistle speaks, but it is to you and I it carries its stentorian voice.”
The whistle is an indication of progress, a city that is on its way to becoming a powerhouse in the country, Cook probably would have said. Never mind the “aesthetic community where regulations are enforced to suppress this compounder of sounds,” that he scorns. That’s where people live who are “materially, mentally and financially” able to enjoy peace and quiet. But to the other fellows who must make a living and live nearby, the sound of the steam whistle means economic value.
Cook asserts that at around 6 p.m. the factory whistles stop and that a “momentary flash of indignation” can die down too. And, he points out, one could “wish that every day were Sunday,” where presumably most work comes to a halt and the cacophony of sound gives way to the “chirping of birds.”
By Judy Knight
Source: Union Pacific Railroad Museum
Caption: Sturdy stone shops in Laramie for the Union Pacific Railroad, around 1868—the shops including the low roundhouse in the background were started even before the city was platted and lots sold, in 1867. No doubt there was a steam whistle here to summon workers and for shift changes, described in 1922 as a “coarse, hollow bellow.”
Source: Laramie Plains Museum
Caption: UPRR engine 1183 in the Laramie yards in 1906 shows part of the boiler behind the man standing. On top, nearest the cab, is the large round “steam dome” with the steam whistle of brass projecting on top of it. Note the bell with a cord going to the cab where the engineer could also signal.