The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

October 25, 2009

Ask us: Clock tower's fate lost in time

Clock was a chronic problem

Q: Why was the clock tower removed from Mankato's downtown post office? Are there any future plans to bring it back?

A: Ask Us checked with the Post Office, the company that supplied the post office’s stone and the company that installed it, but no one could say what happened to the clock tower.

While it’s not specifically mentioned in the old newspaper articles organized by the Blue Earth County Historical Society, it appears the clock was removed in a 1933 renovation and expansion of the post office.

Most references to the clock in these stories revolve around its problems.

When it was installed in 1896, the clock tower’s dials were illuminated by 24 gas jets, all burning. The room that held the jets was watertight and 14 feet on all sides. Within a year of the installation the jets had “boiled the pitch out of the pine lumber,” according to the story.

So the city turned off the gas and replaced the gas jets with electricity later that year.

The clock’s dials were moved with compressed air. The pumps were powered with city water.

There were ongoing problems with the clock, which one headline called “an obstinate time-piece.”

In 1933, when the post office more than doubled in size, a story declared the new postmaster “will not have to worry about the four-faced clock” because it had been removed.

The clock was installed by Johnson Service Co. of Milwaukee for $1,065. The company still exists, but has been renamed Johnson Controls.

Ken Worth, who manages the company’s records and archives, said there’s no record about what happened to the clock after it was installed in 1896.

But when the original owner died in 1911 the company focused on temperature control and ended its clock installation business, among others.

By 1933, “the parts were probably not available, certainly not from Johnson,” he said.

Ask Us also asked the owner of Vetter Stone, which provided stone for the original post office and its expansion, and a representative from the post office. Neither knew what happened to the clock.

If a reader knows more, please e-mail Ask Us at the address listed at the bottom of this column.

Q: Adams Street continues to be a problem as it goes to Hope Street and then one has to cross over to Victory Drive via the poorly designed “path” across the backside of Madison East to connect with Adams Street again. When can we expect Adams Street to be connected in a proper manner?

A: If the city reconstructed the road behind Madison East Mall today, it would have to pay 100 percent of the cost, City Manager Pat Hentges said.

“This is off the top of my head but what we’re talking about may run nearly a million dollars,” he said.

And he said there are more pressing transportation needs where that money could be spent, he said.

But if the private land owners re-develop the area they’d assume some of that cost and a new connection would be more likely.

The city currently has an agreement with the mall operator to run traffic behind the mall.



Contact Ask Us at The Free Press, P.O. Box 3287, Mankato, MN 56002. Call the newsroom at 344-6397 or e-mail your question to editor@mankato-freepress.com; put Ask Us in the subject line. This Ask Us was compiled by Free Press staff writer Dan Linehan.

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