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The mystery began "on a dark and blustery night in the fall of 1905" with the disappearance of the steam whistle that reliably marked the start and end of each class at the Georgia School of Technology.
One of the whistle bandits, still full of remorse, returned it 44 years later. But where's that whistle now?
Lewis "Little Doc" Emerson made a whistle stop at the Alumni House recently. The 1949 electrical engineering graduate hoped to see that 1905 steam whistle stolen by his father, the late L.A. "Doc" Emerson, CE 1907.
The Emersons aren't kin to the original Doc Emerson, W.H., a chemistry professor when Tech's doors first opened. Regardless, the surname brought the nickname. This may seem confusing but it's nothing compared to the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the whistle. The whistle on display at the Alumni House is not the one L.A. Emerson and his cohorts made off with.
Once he was certain his son would not be booted out of Tech for his prank, L.A. Emerson presented the whistle, stashed in his attic for more than four decades, to Jack Thiesen, then secretary of the Alumni Association. His letter of confession, dated May 21, 1949, reads:
"On a dark and blustery night in the fall of 1905, some irresponsible and reckless Tech underclassmen perpetrated a naughty prank. ... The whistle that called classes on the hour, announced 'chow time' and ordered the daily lives of professors and students alike from dawn till dark had disappeared. Only a long, white, hissing spurt of steam streaked from the severed pipe above the boiler room.
"For 44 years, the legend of what happened to the whistle has been a dark and unsolved mystery. ... I think it's time to clear the record and return the venerable relic to its rightful owners.
"The culprits were the following four misguided individuals: 'Tris' Hyde from Charleston, now a vice president of Virginia Life Insurance; Harry Arrington from Augusta, my roommate at the time, now deceased; 'Abe' Ellis from Augusta, (given) the job of cutting off the whistle; (and) ... your humble scribe."
Emerson explained in his letter that Ellis had trouble balancing on a sawhorse acquired to help reach the whistle. "So your correspondent, being of lighter frame, shimmied up and with a pipe cutter, previously 'borrowed' from the shop, and perpetrated the dire, dark and awful deed.
"The recollection of the student body being called into chapel and the fearful consequences promised the guilty parties still gives me a numb feeling all along my aging spine. ... I'm sending the whistle to you by insured parcel post and you, along with my friend George Griffin, to whom I have already confessed, can make proper disposition."
As soon as "Little Doc" Emerson saw the brass whistle on display at the Alumni House, he knew it wasn't the one his father had taken. "The 1905 whistle was jet black and smaller in diameter," he said. "Pasted on the body of the whistle was a copy of the Atlanta newspaper article describing the confusion caused at Tech by the missing whistle.
"I doubt if Jack Thiesen would have disposed of it as George Griffin, Dad and Mr. Thiesen wrote each other about that incident over and over," Emerson said. "Dean Griffin always addressed his letters 'Dear Whistle Stealer.'"
The whistle stealer, Thiesen and Griffin all are gone now. Perhaps someone else knows the whereabouts of a small black steam whistle.
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