At this Eugene hall time stands still, but the clocks keep ticking.
The Conger Street Clock Museum in Eugene, Oregon, is literally a step back in time. “The clocks all work, but here time stands still,” is the slogan of this unique gallery, whose collection relates the history of timekeeping.
Paying heed to the seasons was critical to Indians, mountain men and emigrants in the early West, but telling time daily by the position of the sun was usually good enough for them. Times were a-changing, however, and more precise timekeeping became more important, especially for Western travelers, after May 10, 1869. That was the day the Golden Spike ceremony was held at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, to mark the completion of the first transcontinental railroad. After that meeting of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific, company managers met a new challenge—time management.
In the mid-19th century the country relied largely on two types of time measurement—natural time (the motion of the sun) and local time (using synchronized astronomical time, based on time at the meridian of a specific location). As few Westerners carried pocket watches, town officials often placed clocks in prominent spots to aid citizens. The trains, however, ran on the time kept in the particular city where the rail line originated. Train passengers would be alerted to the time change as the train crossed each meridian. As railroads progressed west, companies began publishing timetables to coordinate time between the various destinations. When the transcontinental railroad arrived, railroad officials sought a plan for standardizing time.
Charles Ferdinand Dowd is generally credited with developing the first comprehensive national time zone system. After consulting with railway superintendents, Dowd proposed time standards in hourly divisions, or time zones, positioned similarly to those in use today. In time those standards set Eastern Time on the 75th meridian, Valley Time (later called Central) at the 90th meridian, Mountain Time on the 105th meridian and Pacific Time on the 120th meridian. The General Time Convention of 1883 adopted the new standards, and at noon on November 18 at the 75th meridian the railroads began operating on “Railroad and Telegraph Time.”
Of course, clocks were being mass-produced in the United States well before the railroads became obsessed with timetables. The Conger Street Clock Museum centers on 26 window displays featuring several hundred vintage clocks, novelty clocks and chime clocks of all shapes and sizes. A 19th-century street clock stands prominently in the large lobby, where you’ll also find a variety of wall clocks and grandfather clocks. An 1898 clock that once tolled large bells outside of a bank now controls both the red bells to its right and the bells of an adjacent 1901 master school clock that in times past signaled recess, lunch and the end of a school day.
It’s hard to miss the 18-foot-tall Conger Street tower clock, circa 1750, which features two sets of bells—a 7-foot-long single bell on the right, and 8-foot-long double bells on the left. “The right side is for counting the quarter-hour, and each 15 minutes it rings one more time,” explains museum owner J.D. Olson. “So at 15 minutes after the hour it strikes one time. On the half-hour it rings twice, at 15 minutes before the hour it rings three times, and on the hour it rings four times.”
Don’t let the 1858 Davies Illuminated Alarm Clock startle you.“When the alarm was triggered,” Olson explains, “a spring on the top of the clock would release. This would allow a match to travel across the spring covered with leather sandpaper. In theory, the match would strike and continue to rotate until over an oil lamp on the top of the clock. The match would light the lamp to provide light in the dark of the night. However, what often happened was that the match head would snap off and light the clock on fire instead of the lamp.”
If you have time, also check out the promotional 1917 General Electric refrigerator clock, a 1907 candle clock, the collection of Wells Fargo clocks and several bank vault timers. And remember, clock watchers were as common in the Old West as they are today. Heck, if not for clocks, Gary Cooper never would have made it on time to his shootout at High Noon.
The Conger Street Clock Museum is at 730 Conger St. in Eugene. Visit www .conger-street-clock-museum.com or call (541) 344-6359 for more info.
Originally published in the December 2013 issue of Wild West. To subscribe, click here.
