[Milsurplus] Another Whats-it ??? - A bit off topic

[John Hensley]

Thanks to all for identifying this as part of the Gamewell fire alarm box with a mechanism made by Peerless Mfg. Co.  My eyesight was not good enough to see the trademarks so I asked.  I guess I should have googled first but it was very enjoyable to learn so much about it from all the input.  This alarm came from my grandfathers service station in Whitesboro, Texas after it was leveled for a nearby banks parking lot.  It's not ancient but is at least 1930's or earlier.  Grandpa Denton had been editor of the Whitesboro newspaper until he was in an automobile accident and lost his eyesight.  He then ran a service station which was 1/2 block from his home and used the high visible glass type container pumps.  You would turn a crank and the class container would fill to what ever level you wanted.  He walked there every morning, usually by himself, and opened up the station.  Customers would tell him when the gasoline was at the mark they wanted and would show Grandpa where the gas fill cap was on the new cars.  My grandmother told me he could repair a tire, keep the cold drink machine filled and had a counter inside where he displayed fuses, lamps, bubble gum and the like.  Customer participation for gas and service by the way was all on the honor system.  It was a different world than today.  Anyway, the drive through at his station was paved with cola bottle caps from years of people tossing the cap on the ground (not paved).  As kids we used to try to see how many different bottle caps we could identify.  When we were little, we would swing around the fire alarm box post until someone shoo'ed us away from the street.  Retired friends or friends on their lunch hour would play dominoes on a small table in front of the station.  Granpa was good at dominoes and had a memory sharp as a tack.  This fire alarm mechanism must have been pulled from that pole box at the stations front sidewalk before workers removed the concrete/post assembly.  As kids, we wouldn't have had any idea what was inside that red school house alarm box.  All to say, this brought back great memories so thanks again.
By the way, his son (and my uncle) was a radio ham which is where my interest began.  Uncle Ted was the first radio ham in Whitesboro making all his equipment by hand.  His call was 5AFD and you can see pictures of what his 1920's ham station looked like at Albert Duponts web site who took over Uncle Ted's call:
http://www.qsl.net/w5afd/5afd.html
73, John W5JV

From: w5jv at hotmail.com
To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net; milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Another Whats-it ???
Date: Thu, 8 Nov 2012 20:16:45 -0600





Can anyone identify this what's-it ?
At URL:  
http://www.w5jv.com/Unknown%20Device/