The Cosgrave siren is very interesting. This was the work of Austin B. Cosgrave and William H. Lewis who originally sold their siren through The Gamewell Company as the "Codewell" siren. The Codewell premiered in 1929 as a 5 horsepower single tone siren using a spring-loaded fan stacked inside a very tall drum. It used a patented coding system originally used for smaller sirens - read all about it here:
https://www.google.com/patents/US1520225