by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
For the first time since 1973, the only way Jacobs Jewelers owner Roy Thomas is able to see the clock in front of his store is to carry one of the replicas he sells out the door of the store on Laura Street.
A City crew removed the clock Thursday morning to protect it from damage during the final phase of the Laura Street improvement project.
While it’s off-site, the clock’s mechanism and housing will be rehabilitated before it is returned to its corner.
The four-dialed 18-foot tall cast-iron timepiece has been a Downtown landmark for more than a century. Manufactured by the Seth Thomas Clock Co. in Connecticut, it arrived in Jacksonville a few months after the Great Fire of 1901 reduced the city to rubble. It’s one of only 100 manufactured and one of only about 10 remaining in operation today.
The clock was purchased and mounted on the sidewalk in front of the rebuilt store when it was on Bay Street, not so much to indicate the time of day to passersby but to signify that Jacksonville was rising from the ashes and open for business.
Several years later, the store and the clock moved to Forsyth Street, where both remained until 1930, when both moved again to Laura and Adams streets.
The year 1973 is also significant because that’s the year a city bus jumped the curb and knocked the clock down, necessitating its first major overhaul.
It was restored again in 1995, the year Jacobs Jewelers gave it to the City. Thomas said the clock was appraised at $100,000, due to its value as an antiquity, before ownership was transferred.
City Historic Planner Joel McEachin said the clock will be safely stored awaiting replacement of the mechanism and sandblasting and painting the base and case. That won’t happen, he said, until funds can be appropriated from the City’s budget or obtained through a grant or private sources.
Thomas said he has a $4,000 estimate for the cost of replacing the movement with a new electronic version and he has requested an estimate for powder-coating the exterior, which would be more durable than paint.
Thomas also said he doesn’t know why the City claims to not have the money to rehabilitate the clock. He said in addition to transferring ownership of the historic landmark in 1995, his store and a local law firm partnered to present to the City a $6,500 trust fund designated to be used for future maintenance and repairs.
The principal, plus 16 years of accrued interest, should be more than enough to complete the work needed to return the clock to its place along the new and improved Laura Street in a timely fashion, he said.
Thomas said if there’s a government procedure needed to locate and release the funds, “I’ll pay for the work if they’ll reimburse me.”
“If they’ll powder-coat it, it will last so long this is the last time I’ll have to think about it,” he said.
356-2466