Brendan, creator of the Museum of Endangered sounds, here, invites visitors to enjoy his site:
“Click a thumbnail to take a listen down memory lane. Click the thumbnail again to turn it off and play another. Or, if you like industrial music, try turning on all the thumbnails at once!”
Check out the PacMan sounds or the recorded payphone operator.
I am inspired to think of other endangered sounds (milk bottles landing on front stoops in Wayland Square) and sounds that are no more (the sound of the ivory-billed woodpecker). Do send me your own suggestions. Maybe I will e-mail them to Brendan.
After you check out the sounds at the Museum of Endangered Sounds, read more on Brendan at his site. He writes, for example:
- “I founded the Peleus Research Team at Chattanooga State Community College as a freshman.
- “I have eight gerbils.
- “When I am not collecting sounds my hobbies include video games, information web design, and thai yoga.
- “My middle name is Charles, after Charles I of England, who was executed in 1649.”
Photograph: Brendan at http://savethesounds.info.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
I see he has a rotary dial phone–that’s what I was going to suggest! We have one in our basement, but basically I think no children today know that sound.
What about a sound of a loom — the kind they have in the Textile Museum in Lowell? That makes a distinctive racket, and I don’t think there could be very many Industrial Revolution looms around any more. Or here’s one — the sound of a hand pump for well water.
Those are both good ones, though they are ones that I myself don’t know from firsthand experience.