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| A camp-wide alarm
system was always needed and the first alarm would have been the bugle
call for “Assembly” - easily heard by everyone in camp when the campsites
and activity areas were close to the front of camp. As the area expanded
a better system was needed, and the first alarm bell was a steel brake
drum, perhaps 16 inches in diameter, rung by hammering on it with a hammer.
In the mid fifties Don Christie, the Nature Director, procured a railroad train engine's tire from the Maine Central Railroad, through the efforts of his father, who worked for the railroad. It was marked with a brass plate commemorating the gift and had a large eye bolt at the top for suspending it from a wooden frame, placed in the wooded area between Androscoggin Cabin and the council ring We tried hard to keep a small sledge hammer attached to the frame, which was used to ring a very loud and insistent signal for fire drill or emergency calls. That signal could be heard all over the camp. Until 1986 the camp emergency signal was the fire gong until it was replaced by a sireen mounted on top of the rec hall. |
