STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — For more than half a century, Steamboat Springs has signaled high noon with a siren blast that set off a run on cafes but also scared children, made dogs howl and had tourists fearing catastrophe.
Two years ago, the 150-decibel, Cold War-era siren broke. The earsplitting noon wail stopped. But the silence proved to be too much for some Steamboat residents. A group of downtown promoters just wrapped up two years of fundraising and will bring back the town’s noon signal next month. It will be a mellower whistle that will hark back to the 1920s when the city’s noon signal was a whistle operated from a steam laundry.
Steamboat isn’t alone in hanging on to a historic noontime blast of sound. From Aspen to Las Animas, whistles and sirens still blow just as stomachs are beginning to growl.
“It’s important for a small-town image to have a whistle,” said Tracy Barnett, director of MainStreet Steamboat Springs, the group that spearheaded the drive for a new whistle.
That is also true in Aspen where the noon whistle tradition began in the mines more than a century ago and eventually moved to the fire station.
When the Aspen Volunteer Fire Department built a new firehouse last year, there was a survey to see if people wanted the whistle to continue. They did. So the whistle moved too, and still signals lunch every day.
“It’s become sort of a cultural icon here,” said Fire Chief Darryl Grob.
Grob said if the whistle falls behind by even half a minute, his phone starts ringing with complaints.
In farm towns on the Eastern Plains, including Las Animas and Lamar, residents recognize a noon siren as a comforting call to grub. A wail any other time is a jarring notice of funnel clouds or flames.
The San Juan mountain town of Ouray has a noon siren that has blown for as long as anyone at city hall can remember. But neighboring Silverton has no more noontime signal. A courthouse clock bonged for many years at the top of every hour until the chime mechanism broke several years ago. A courthouse employee said it really hasn’t been missed because the clock runs 30 minutes behind anyway.
In Steamboat Springs, Marco Pauvert is anxious to hear the new sound. His Epicurean Cafe sits near the old siren that used to scare the heck out of his patio diners. As for a new one — “If it’s not too loud, why not?”
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com
