The Whistle

The Georgia Tech Whistle, a steam whistle installed on the Shop Building in 1888, signaled the opening of the Georgia School of Technology and called students to their shop classes, mimicking the industrial whistles of the time. After the original Shop Building burned down, the Whistle was reinstalled on the second shop and later moved to the Holland Building in 1923. The Whistle, which was first stolen in 1905, is now protected by a cage due to the high cost of replacement. Today, it operates on a computerized clock, blowing on a set schedule every weekday, and a recording of its sound is played after Tech touchdowns during home games.

Facts About The Whistle

• Installed on the Shop Building when it was built and signaled the opening of the School in 1888
• When the Shop Building burned down, the Whistle was reinstalled on the second shop when it was built.
• Moved to the Holland Building in 1923.
• Meant to mimic the industrial whistles of the times. It called the students to their shop classes.
• Stealing the Whistle happened the first time in 1905; because of the expense of replacing it, the prank was frowned upon and eventually a cage was built over it to protect it.
• It is a steam whistle.
• Operated today by a computerized atomic clock that releases the steam.
• Blows five minutes to the hour to end classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It has a different schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• It blows after Tech touchdowns during home games.

Whistlenapping

It’s unclear when exactly the student body began to poach the Tech steam whistle. The Georgia Tech Living History Program notes the first “whistlenapping” occurred in either 1902 or 1903, “when two rival campus factions literally battled to determine which group would steal the whistle.” The lucky leader of the winning group was lowered out of a window to unscrew it. The whistle was returned anonymously the next day after a stern warning from the administration.

A 1964 issue of the Alumni Magazine does not mention this incident, instead claiming the first theft occurred in 1905, engineered by a student named L.A. Emerson. According to the Atlanta Constitution story following the whistlenapping, “The members of the faculty were almost frantic for a while, as they did not know how to summon the students. The wildest confusion prevailed.”

In this case, the culprits so feared the administration’s retaliation that the whistle was not returned until 1949. In a letter to the alumni secretary at that time, Emerson wrote, “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. It was even rumored that the cost would be taken from the ‘damage fees’ of the entire student body—unless the culprits confessed.”

According to the 1964 article, Emerson did end up confessing at some point to Dean George C. Griffin, who was involved with Georgia Tech in some capacity for almost 50 years. Griffin was presented with a stolen whistle as a retirement gift in 1964 from an anonymous group of students who called themselves the Magnificent Seven. The group had snatched the whistle on Oct. 31, 1963, before having it engraved, mounted on a base, and sent to Griffin via a delivery boy in May 1964.

Griffin turned the whistle back over to Tech, and the whistlenapping continued in the fall of 1981. Georgia Tech personnel housed near the whistle had complained so much about the noise that the hourly signal was discontinued, leaving the student body outraged. Students held the whistle for ransom, promising to return it only if it could continue its hourly blasts. A compromise was reached, allowing the whistle to return with the duration of its sound reduced from 10 seconds to five seconds.

When G. Wayne Clough was inaugurated as Georgia Tech’s 10th president in 1994, the whistle was supposed to be blown 10 times to signify Clough as the 10th president. However, Kevin Morgan, EE 95, and Duane Horton, BC 97, had stolen the whistle the night before, leaving the facilities staff to find a replacement, the sound of which Morgan later described as an “air burst…raspberry…blubbery sound.” The whistle was returned to Clough at a meeting in his office.