Sterling History

[500AT]

Here is an e-mail that I received from Bill Yarberry at Sentry Siren, which talks briefly about their roots:

Ron:

Again, thank you very much for contacting us concerning our history and your 1917 Model M Siren. It was great to hear this and we really appreciate it.

I did a little research this morning and I thought I would share some of the information. Interstate Machine Products Co., Inc. was incorporated in Rochester, New York on September 9th, 1919. I have the original incorporation books here but I can not tell how long they operated in Rochester before they incorporated. It does state that they were a Connecticut Corporation before this but I can not find the paperwork on when they were incorporated in Connecticut. I have seen it before and I believe they started in 1905 but today I can not find what I am looking for. Besides making sirens they were making cigar lighters and some washing machine parts or motors.

I did find some cards concerning a few of the sirens that they made in the book. One siren is dated 1912 for Gowanda, New York. It was 220 Volt and three HP. Several others were dated 1917 and 1919.

On July 1st, 1925 they changed the name to Sterling Siren Fire Alarm Co., Inc.

It is sad that so much of the history of the company has been lost but I thought you might want to know this additional information.

Best regards,

Bill Yarberry
Sentry Siren, Inc.

[SirenMadness]

Bill Yarberry? Is Sentry Siren a family-owned company now?

Anyways, thanks for gathering that information, there!

[500AT]

I wonder if the 1912 Gowanda, New York siren is still in service, or existent?

[Daniel]

Thanks for the info! I'm still waiting for the Sentry 15V2T with an 8/10 ratio.

[jmev]

It's a family business.

If you look at the current model sirens, they all have a metal tag that reads:

STERLING QUALITY SIREN
MFD BY SENTRY SIREN INC

[Franz?]

Well if all you young fellows who wish to know a thing or two about Sterling Siren Fire Alarm will pull your safety switches and pull up a seat, including Bill Yarberry, who I never heard of till I read this post, I'll see what I can tell you.

I'm a cantankerous half deaf old fart, and the last man standing who worked for Sterling. I also helped build, and installed the last machine the company put together on Manitou Rd after the shop moved there in the 60s.

I'm a little interested that Bill Yarberry doesn't know much about Sterling, and I've looked at his web site.

Rochester, NY was a siren rich city back in the 60s, starting with the Chrysler on the hose tower at Fire Headquarters located at the point where North St, University Ave and Andrews St come together. Somebody could probably bring that up on Google earth since the City painted it FD Red a few years ago after 35 years of neglect.

There are at least 20 Sterlings still in place in Rochester, mostly rusting and neglected since most firemen in Rochester & Monroe County carry alphanumeric pagers, and get the full text dispach from Fire Dispatch. The entire area is stuffed with yuppies who can't have their lives disturbed by a siren blowing. A couple departments, like Brighton continue to use their house siren just to remind the yuppies to get the hell away from the firehouse apron so the big red truck can get on the street to go put the wet stuff on the red stuff.

Almost all of Monroe County's volunteer companys were equipped with Sterling house sirens either by direct Department purchase, or by Civil Defense in the 50s, and ALL house sirens are controlled by radio transmitted by City Fire Headquarters. The original system employs Motorola's "Z tones", which have become a major PITA in today's world of radio dispatch.

Now, as I said, I'm the last man standing, and since I am, I own a few Sterling items, including a bronz bearing H model and the last remaining NOS motor for a horizontal house siren. I also have a poletopper fhp vertical, and most of a pattern timer sitting here. If you young bucks don't want to be responsible for that machinery going to China to become paperclips when I croak, you best contact me NOW.

Like I said, I got cantankerous dealing with Fire Chiefs who knew everything about sirens.

[500AT]

Hello Franz, and welcome to the Web site!

I have a question for you. The town I grew up in, Dundee, Michigan, had a rather unique Sterling siren that was very, very loud. It had a vertically driven motor, and was housed in what a call a "tin can," for a lack of a better description. The housing had a lot of open space in the middle and towards the top of the siren, much like a Federal Signal Model 5, but with no hoods on it. I would estimate it's height at 5' tall, maybe a little higher.

Do you know what series of siren this would have been from Sterling?

[Franz?]

Sterling in Rochester, the genuine Sterling only produced verticals in fractional horsepower. They were about 18" long, and 8" diameter.

Some experimentation had been done with revising the mounting of the H model to a vertical attitude, to compete with Federal's Sound Barrier models coming out in the late 50s, but it brought backthe nightmare of sirens frozen by rain and sirens that didn't wind up properly due to excessive bearing loading in a vert attitude.

[Daniel]

Franz, if I didn't live in Oregon, I'd love to have a few beers with you and chat about your work with Sterling. Here in Oregon, we have a number of vertical sirens that, for lack of a better way to describe them, look like a paint can with a rotor on the bottom. These sirens have nine ports and appear to be less than 3 Hp. One of them is shown in this video with an added-on cap. Are these Sterling sirens?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oytx9-Fd3G8

[500AT]

Sterling in Rochester, the genuine Sterling only produced verticals in fractional horsepower. They were about 18" long, and 8" diameter.

Some experimentation had been done with revising the mounting of the H model to a vertical attitude, to compete with Federal's Sound Barrier models coming out in the late 50s, but it brought backthe nightmare of sirens frozen by rain and sirens that didn't wind up properly due to excessive bearing loading in a vert attitude.

This was a problem the Dundee siren suffered from in the winter months, being frozen up by snow and ice. This is part of the reason they replaced it with a Federal Model 500SH TT in 1970. Nonetheless, it was controlled by a Sterling timer that required start/stop buttons. The timer would run forever until someone at the fire station would press the stop button.