A tower behind the Chamber of Commerce building in Erie’s Old Town has been disassembled and removed from the spot where it sat for decades. The tower’s historic siren, which was once used to alert the Erie community to danger, will be preserved.
With “no historical value,” the tower has been scrapped, but the siren will find a new home at the request of the Erie Historic Preservation Advisory Board, according to a town announcement.
The chamber’s building at 235 Wells St. was the original home of Erie’s Town Hall, where the town’s fire truck parked, according to the announcement. The tower has been standing since the mid-1900s, when Erie installed a World War II surplus air raid siren to alert volunteers to respond to active fires and other emergencies.
The siren was installed at the top of the “30-foot tower that looked like an oil rig,” Lew Holloway, an author with the Erie Historical Society, wrote in 2024…