Spartanburg hopes to have historic clock marking time once again in downtown tower
Portions of West Main Street in downtown Spartanburg were closed late last monthas firefighters helped to refurbish parts of the landmark clock tower.
The area reopened to traffic after workers removed the hands and face from the clock facing toward East Main Street. The work done is the first step in a $23,000 project to update the historic clock tower.
“We want to have a fully functional clock on the clock tower again,” said city spokesman Will Rothschild.
Traffic around the clock tower likely will be blocked for a couple of hours at a time on each day workers are at the site, Rothschild said.
The clock and bell were installed in the old opera house in downtown during the early 1880s, said Brad Steinecke, an archivist and historian for the Spartanburg County Public Libraries.
“The town council purchased the clock and bell for the opera house,” Steinecke said.
The old opera house was located in the area where Hub City Bookshop is now located. The clock remained there until the early 1900s when the city sold the opera house building. The opera house building was demolished, and the clock and bell were moved to the old courthouse. After the old courthouse was torn down in 1958, the clock and bell were placed in storage for about 20 years. In the 1970s, a bicentennial committee started a campaign to restore the clock. The effort was successful, and the clock and bell were placed back in downtown around 1979.
The original gears that allow the clock to work date back to the 1880s. Those gears no longer work. The clock hasn't given an accurate time for a while, Rothschild said. The original gears will not be reinstalled on the clock tower, but will be kept by the city because of their historical significance.
“We didn't want to just get rid of it,” Rothschild said.
New, modernized gears will be installed in the tower. The refurbishing process for the faces and hands should take a couple of weeks, he said.
If the city had tried to repair the original gears, the project cost would have been closer to $60,000, he said.
The new clocks will be electronically powered and will be easier to maintain and repair. Few people know how to maintain old, large, mechanical clocks, making repair work significantly more expensive. Rothschild said the expert hired to examine the current clockworks traveled from New York.
The new electronic clock will be maintained in the future by a company from Charleston, making maintenance work cheaper and more accessible.
“The face has been looking kind of worn. It has needed a face-lift for a while,” Rothschild said. “We hope the end result is a clock that looks better and actually functions.”