Some clocks around town:
Time is money: Formerly the First National Bank (1926).
A thyme to sow: This clock was a gift to the Botanic Garden from the Fort Worth Garden Club in 1995.
A time to go: In the lobby of the Texas & Pacific passenger terminal (1931).
Counterclockwise: If ever a clock could be a time machine—the kind that can turn back the hands of time and transport us to yesteryear—it would be the Haltom’s clock. Who can stand under this grand old clock at Third and Main and not imagine the downtown of a century ago—the flivvers and the fashions?
Haltom’s opened in 1893 at Sixth and Main (now the Ashton Hotel). The clock—cast iron, two and a half tons—was made by the Howard company of Boston in 1914. Back then the clock had an eight-day mechanism. Each Saturday the Haltom’s store manager—I like to picture him wearing spats, a bowler hat, and a handlebar mustache—would climb a ladder and rewind the clock.
In 1988 Haltom’s moved to the Knights of Pythias Hall (1901) at Third and Main and brought the clock along. The clock’s innards were updated in 2006. Now the clock has an atomic mechanism, which uses radio waves to keep the precise time. Impressive but just not the same as a guy standing on a ladder and wearing spats, a bowler, and a handlebar mustache.
This is real close to my heart, I love old clocks. I have a small neon shop just north of Weatherford, and I work on and replace neon on various clocks mostly the old outdoor Cleveland advertising clocks.
Someday people who can–and will–work on something with moving parts will be rare.
I could’nt agree more, I’ll soon be 64 years old, and convinced I’ve lived in the best of times.