Recently in N.Y. Wire/Whistle Category

This was the first graphic or photograph to appear with a York Town Square post, accompanying York Market House No. 5 - Carlisle Avenue Market, revisited in April 2006. Incidentally, that the present-day Dreamwrights building was built as a farmers market still surprises folks. Background posts: There were 5, count 'em, 5 York markets and Don't know much about (York market) history?.

The year 2007 saw visitors to this blog increase exponentially over the previous two years we've been posting.

We hope you are enjoying each day's history lesson. The numbers, increased commenting and e-mails suggest you are.

A list of best, first and most popular posts at this blog follows:

Sidney Poitier smiles while making his way to the podium at the Valencia Ballroom in 2002. Poitier was the guest speaker of The Junior League of York's "In The Spotlight" Speaker Series. For more on the Valencia, see below. Background posts: Original WSBA station hands mic to demolition team and Valencia Ballroom became cool place during Depression.
You're sitting in the living room surrounded by visiting loved ones.

And the talk perhaps turns to York County, its strengths, weakness and befuddling quirks.

And you want to show your smarts about this complex, often perplexing county, which boasts of a bottomless fund of history.

So began my most recent York Sunday News column:

So to help you strut your intelligence, we continue what we started last Christmas and come up with another 20 questions for you to pose (search on this blog for additional details) ... .

Whistlemaster Donald Ryan is at the helm of New York Wire Cloth's steam whistle controls, continuing the Christmas concert dating back to the 1920s. The concert is set again this year at 12:15 a.m., Dec. 25. "Mr. Ryan is excited about continuing the concert tradition this year but is keeping the carol lineup a surprise because many listeners like to guess the tunes," a news release states. Background posts: The world's loudest music without amplification from a non-musical instrument and Encore.

York Town Square posts on the New York Wire Cloth steam whistle score among the highest traffic of any individual entries in the two-plus-year history of this local history blog.

But to add to these two-dimensional posts, we now have a sample of what the whistle sounds like - the haunting, fog-horn-like sound that has serenaded York since music teacher, Karl Alex Smyser commenced the performance in the 1920s....

Whistle Master Don Ryan practices on the steam whistle in 2006, as Austin Mohn of Manchester Township lends a hand. Background posts: 20 questions and answers to prove your York smarts and Musical factory whistle drowns out N.Y. Wire's WWII feats.

The New York Wire Company's annual steam whistle concert will be a blast again this year.

That is the York-area's iconic concert in which an old factory whistle, with a sliding valve, blasts holiday music. The concerts are even available on CDs. (For additional posts on the whistle, see N.Y. Wire Cloth/Whistle. For a sample of its sounds, find link at: Whistle ... by the numbers).

In a press release, Mark Platts, head of event supporter Lancaster-York Heritage Region, provided a heads up:

Col. Paul W. Tibbets, with the B-29 Superfortress bomber the Enola Gay, the plane he piloted in dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on during World War II. Tibbets, who had named the plane after his mother, died recently in Columbus, Ohio. Background post: Publishing legend Gitt vocal about nuclear power.

York countians helped with parts of the Manhattan Project. And at least one York countian saw the destruction wreaked by the second bomb, the one that hit Nagasaki.

Lt. Paul Hyde, a York Corporation employee, was navigating a Coast Guard-manned landing craft that was greeted with a tench as his craft moored in Nagasaki's harbor....

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Whistle workers practice in advance of Christmas concert in 2004. From left, Don Ryan, Nathan Keeney, Scott Ryan work the controls.

So much attention is given to New York Wire Cloth's Christmas-Carol-playing steam whistle that the company's immense contributions during World War II are all-but-forgotten.

Indeed, there's a current drama going on about whether the York plant's whistle, billed as producing the world's loudest music without amplification from a non-musical instrument, will blast this holiday season... .

A boiler malfunction caused the cancellation of the York-area annual steam whistle concert in 2005.

But all is not lost. More on that in a moment.

New York Wire Co.'s boiler lost pressure right before the December 2005 show. Steam from the boiler, regulated with an unusual slide on the whistle, enables whistlemasters to play Christmas carols every year.

Some residents are going through withdrawal, but help is on the way. A CD titled "Factory Steam Whistle, New York Wire Co." is available at York's Borders Books.

The CD jacket claims the whistle plays the world's loudest music without amplification from a non-musical instrument. Its sounds can be heard as far away as 10-12 miles when the weather is right.

The CD, dedidated to longtime whistlemaster Marlin L. Ryan, contains Christmas standards: "Silent Night," "The First Noel," "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," and "O Come All Ye Faithful."

Another historical note not found on the CD jacket: The whistle was used as part of the civilian defense alert system during World War II. In those days, any whistle that was loud and could play different notes -- such qualities were scarce in whistles of the day -- proved valuable in alerting the public.

The whistle returned in 2006. For photo and story, see whistle workers.

And, there's more... .

York Corporation, later York International and Johnson Controls, made essential machinery for the production of plutonium as part of the Manhattan Project.

So reports longtime Dallastown resident Charlie Raab, who worked as a metallurgist for York Corporation during World War II. The Manhattan Project produced the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945... .