Whistle While You Work (and Remember!)
In 1963, Muncie resident Ruth Langdon (1905-1975) published a tribute in The Star Press bidding a fond farewell to a cherished and loyal friend, one she’d known for forty years. Sweet and sentimental, what is fascinating about Ruth’s letter is that it wasn’t written about a person. Instead, it was written about “Old Faithful,” the Ball Brothers factory whistle.
Fig. 1 – Read Ruth’s entire letter from the March 12, 1963 issue of The Star Press for yourself! This clipping comes from the Ball Corporation Collection in the Minnetrista archives.
Today, “Old Faithful” is part of the Minnetrista Heritage Collection and in many ways, represents the Ball Corporation’s journey to Muncie and its local legacy.
Fig. 2 – The Ball Brothers Factory Whistle in Storage at Minnetrista. Mounted now in its commemorative brick base, it weighs over 350 pounds!
Like the original Ball brothers (and sisters!), the whistle was born in Ohio in the mid-1800s: the Ball family in Greensburg, the whistle at Cincinnati’s Lunkenheimer Company, the “largest manufacturers of high-grade engineering specialties in the world.” East Central Indiana’s natural gas boom drew the Ball Brothers’ glass business west and led to the rapid growth of the company's Muncie plant at the corner of what is today Macedonia and Memorial. By the early 1900s, Ball Brothers was the largest manufacturer of fruit jars in the world and employed hundreds of people in Muncie.
Fig. 3 – The Lunkenheimer Company’s name is stamped right onto the base of the whistle (a curator’s dream!).
For those workers and their families, including the Langdons, Ball’s factory whistle was part of the soundtrack of their daily lives. Ruth’s husband John Langdon (1901-1978), a Muncie native, began working for Ball as a shipping department clerk when he was just a teenager (and he retired in 1966 after 51 years with the company!) After Ruth and John married in 1923, they raised six children in Selma, eventually moving to Shipley Street just blocks from the Ball plant. They would have heard the whistle blow for each factory shift change—three times a day—and also for special occasions in town including holidays and civic celebrations and commemorations. It’s not surprising then that Ball’s announcement in 1962 that they were permanently closing Muncie’s glass houses was met with shock and sadness. It was the end of an era, one that Ruth thought would forever change the sights, and sounds, of the city.
Fig. 4 – A “bird’s-eye view” of the Ball Brothers plant in Muncie as it looked in 1953.
Of course, Ball Brothers did continue operating in Muncie following the closure of the glass houses, still making other products such as metal lids. Was “Old Faithful” actually silenced forever in 1962? The written record is annoyingly silent on this subject but you might hold the answer!
The Ball Brothers whistle will be on display this summer in Minnetrista’s new exhibit, Jarring Our Memories. The exhibit celebrates the oral histories—the memories—of over a dozen former Ball employees and shows how our everyday memories can enrich our knowledge of the past. Do you have any memories of “Old Faithful” whistling while at work in the 1970s, 80s, or 90s? Come share them with us!
