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Birds and bullets can't stop time in Moose
Jaw If you listen closely at 10 a.m. Monday, you'll hear the city hall clock peal its 75th anniversary song. The 10th chime will mark clock's 2,136,722 hour since it was first set in motion at 10 a.m. August 7,1914. During most of those 75 years, the old clock has run virturally trouble free, says the man who's looked after it since 1971. But recently the timepiece has developed the bad habit of stopping at 4 a.m., says Cliff Simpson, the city's clock maintenance man. "I can't figure out why and it's not stopping at four in the afternoon only in the morning, " Simpson said. The troublesome clockwork in the huge timer is suprisingly small. It could easily sit on a coffee table. That is, a coffee table that could support a 180-kg pendulum. Inside the clock tower, above city hall, there is a suprising amount of room. No ducking huge gear cogs or jumping between giant wheel spokes is necessary. Overhead, the 900-pound bell sits at the peak of the 20-foot clocktower. It's struck by a spring-loaded hammer triggered by the clockwork. “The original 18-pound bell-hammer has been replaced by a makeshift hammer until Simpson finishes converting a slegde hammer head to takes its place. "The original hammer was getting too loose and I was worried it
was going to fall off," he said. For minor problems, he can always check an instruction card hanging inside the clockwork box that explains start-up instructions and maintenance proceedures. Simpson acquired his knowledge of clockworks from the clock's previous, keeper, Bill Fordham. But since, Fordham's death, Simpson has been going it alone. With the clock keeping its temper, and time, most of his work is, occupied with winding and general maintenance. The clock is designed with an eight day spring but the city keeps it wound three day a week, he said. A big job coming up for Simpson is replacing broken glass in the four faces. Most of the 96 original glass pieces in each face still remain, but some have been damaged by hail and the occasional stray bullet. Two bullet holes appeared on the clock's east face as recently as two weeks ago, Simpson said. That ends any ideas of having the bullet holes preserved as historic sites under a bronze plaque naming Al Capone as the marksman. When the clock was first installed it was recorded as "the largest clock of its kind in the West." To Moose Jaw's pride, it was two feet larger than the clock then recently installed in Regina's new post office tower. Each clock-face is eight feet in diameter and its numerals are each about one foot long. The minute hands are 3 feet long and I the hour hands are just under threefeet long. The original installation of the clock was by Moose Jaw watch makers and jewlllers Wilson and Maybe. The cloack’s home in Moose Jaw’s City Hall was orginally a post office. When the city took over the building, the federal government had to approve plans to keep the clock in the building. Over the years, the clock has had a few minor problems. In the early 1960s, it stopped when the pendulum spring broke. In 1965, it wasn't bats, but birds in the belfry that forced time changes in Moose Jaw. The birds, it seems, were changing the time by landing on the delecate mechinisms balancing the clock arms and in 1966, the clock stopped dead at 11:17 a.m. No one knew exactly why. When the clock does lose or gain a minute, where does Simpson go to find the correct time? "I phone up the number that gives the time over the telephone." |
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