Silence Too Much For Colville, So Town Siren Is Turned Back On

COLVILLE, Stevens County - One of Colville's oldest and loudest traditions, its noon siren, is back after briefly disappearing.

For as long as anyone can remember, people here have known it's time for lunch when they hear the ear-piercing wail of the air-raid siren.

Either that or someone's house was burning down. The siren also is used to call out volunteer firefighters who may not hear their electronic pagers.

Mayor Duane Scott shut off the lunch call more than a month ago after a timer battery went dead, causing the siren to sound incessantly.

Luckily, City Clerk Holly Pannell was eating her lunch at City Hall and was able to hit the switch in Scott's office before firefighters - or angry business people - started calling.

"Instead of reprogramming the thing, I said, `Let's see how many people miss it,' " Scott said.

Scott said he had a few complaints from downtown business people about the siren.

"People were complaining that they would be talking to a customer and the thing would go off and they couldn't hear each other," the mayor said.

And, he said, "I had to shut it off on Sundays because the churches were giving me fits. They were giving their closing prayers when the thing would go off, so I turned it off on Sundays years ago."

But not everyone was unhappy with the siren, and its shrill noise was reinstated about a week ago after the number of residents calling City Hall in support increased to about 85.

"When I turned it back on, people were cheering in the street," he said.

Although the siren was around long before Scott arrived here as a child in 1942, he suspects its origin is rooted in Colville's history as a sawmill town.

The Vaagen Bros. mill and the now-defunct Robbins mill both tooted steam whistles to let employees know when it was time to eat, time to go back to work, time to go home.

"There were whistles in town that you couldn't believe," Scott recalled.