Federal Dates

[Adam Smith]

Federal Sign and Signal Corp.

The Federal Electric Co., a manufacturer of electric signs, was incorporated in Illinois in 1901 by John Goehst and brothers John and James Gilchrist. In 1915, the company started making sirens. After spending a few years under the control of Chicago utilities titan Samuel Insull, the company became independent again in the 1930s, when it became the Federal Sign & Signal Corp. In 1958, Federal moved its main plant from 87th and State Streets on Chicago's South Side to Blue Island, the suburb a few miles to the southwest. By the middle of the 1960s, the company?a leader in the field of electric signs?was doing about $30 million in annual sales and had about 1,500 employees. After changing its name to the Federal Signal Corp. in 1975, the company's general offices were moved to suburban Oak Brook. By the end of the 1990s, when Federal Signal was a leading manufacturer of emergency vehicles and street sweepers as well as signs and sirens, the company approached $1 billion in annual sales and employed about 1,500 people in the Chicago area.

Reference:
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory. ... /2661.html

[Thunderin' Thunderbolt]

Wow. There is no other word for it. Wow.

That's some pretty cool info, just recently I got curious into the history of Federal Signal. I thought that it was "the company for me" because it included every single thing that I like... even the parking lot machines! (I always wondered where these things come from and how they work...) Emergency vehicles, signs, and sirens are some of my favorite hobbies, too...

[Gil]

Yeah, There offices are still in Oak Brook, IL, but the factory/warehouse
is in Park Forest South/University Park, IL, as seen on Live Local...

BTW, next month I will be down in that area and will take pics of the
factory and the sirens.

[hobbeekid]

Too bad Federal signal does'nt have a archive section on their website giving a brief history on every siren they've manufactured since the 1940's or so.That would make some very interesting reading..........

[AlarmRepair]

The only thing I find wrong with the history is they left out 1 thing. They became Federal Enterprises in 1950 and in 1958 became sign & signal. The Type 7 siren I have cleary says Federal Enterprises on it and was purchesed from Federal around 1952