McIntosh was a community which lived by the whistle.
My family homestead was less than two miles from the Atlantic Coastline railroad where it crossed the Old Sunbury Road. The Sunbury road is the first roadway into the interior of Colonial Georgia. When I was a small boy I remember hearing the sounds of the trains passing through McIntosh and the whistle at the largest of several sawmill operations positioned in the tiny community.
The entire community lived by the whistle. If there was a disaster such as a fire at the mill or a home burning nearby there was a certian whistle code which was known by residents. This series of toots done with an almost musical rythem alerted the community of the impending disaster. It was usually a fire on the millyard.
Fires burned continuously throughout the forties and fifties as the gigantic sawdust piles were burning endlessly as well as the slab pile. Steam clouds also could be seen wafting into the sky from the boiler behind the planner mill. Steam was the source of the sound of the whistle. The boiler was located at the rear of the millyard but the whistle was visible from all around because it stood high above the boiler complex on a pipe which I'd estimate was probably about two or three inches in diameter.
