Forum Flashbacks: May 29-June 4
MARYVILLE DAILY FORUM, JUNE 4, 2000
25 YEARS AGO: Give us a smile – Teasing the camera, 10-month-old Hope Ogle of Clearmont, says she’ll smile when she’s good and ready.
50 years ago
Maryville Daily Forum, May 31, 1975
Citizen Interest Resurrects Community’s Courthouse Clock
The four-sided clock in the tower of the Nodaway County Courthouse is once again keeping time and striking the hours as it has done intermittently since December of 1894 when it was installed by one John J. Neuhavre, representing the Howard Clock Co. of Boston, Mass.
The faces of the clock which gaze on Maryville’s downtown business section had been stilled for a number of years — how many, no one seems to know for sure. It had been repaired into working order in 1967 by a former Graham resident, Allen McNeal, but hadn’t run for some time previous to this month when a former keeper of the clock volunteered his services in returning it to operation.
Gordon Bennett, a retired Light & Power Co. employe, has restored the clock to working order. He installed a small electric motor which runs the time mechanism and realigned an almost hopelessly out of whack set of gears which synchronize the four clock faces.
Bennett first became interested in the clock when as a Light & Power Co. employe in 1945 he was called up into the clock tower by county officials to fix the electric drive mechanism. Prior to World War II, it was wound by hand. …
“I had in the back of my mind that someday when I retired I’d see if I could fix it,” Bennett said. “I heard a lot of people talk around town saying they wished it was fixed and they could hear it strike again.”
In late April, Bennett volunteered his services to the county court to fix the clock. He had the three sides of the clock running on May 12, one side stuck and took a little longer. …
Getting to the clock might have been a more difficult job than the actual repairs. A narrow flight of stairs rises from the second floor of the courthouse to a door leading into the tower.
To go further, you have to begin climbing narrow ladders. One ladder, then another must be traversed until you reach a small room (about 7’x7’) in which the clock mechanism rests. The mechanism leaves little room in which to maneuver. There are two more very vertical ladders which lead up into the farthest reaches of the tower which houses the striker bell.
A spry 65-year-old, Bennett traverses the ladders readily, but the first time he did so this spring to inspect the clock it wasn’t so easy. The tower is a favorite roost for numerous pigeons. Their droppings and dead remains coated the ladders and platforms. In some places the droppings were several inches deep.
Although the droppings have been fairly cleared away now, the climb can still daunt the fainthearted. …
It was citizen interest which brought the clock to Maryville in the first place. Spurred by articles in the Nodaway Democrat, in the summer of 1894 the citizens and businessmen of Maryville began collecting money toward the purchase of a clock for the courthouse which had been constructed in 1882.
The goal was to garner $250 in donations and persuade the county court to appropriate $500 and the Maryville Board of Aldermen to appropriate $250 for a clock.
130 years ago
Nodaway Democrat, Dec. 20, 1894
Court House Clock.
John J. Neuhavre, representing the Howard Clock Company, arrived Monday afternoon and is at work in the matter of putting in place the new court house clock. W. A. Bailey will do the carpenter work.
It will take some eight or ten days to get the clock in place, but it will be up in time to strike out the old year and strike in the new.
In this connection, we desire to remind the citizens that a little over $50 are yet to be raised by subscription to make up the citizen’s part, $250. A committee will wait on all who have not as yet subscribed anything, in the course of a day or two, and give all such a chance to place their names on this roll of honor. We feel sure that everybody in town will feel willing to contribute a little sum at least to this good enterprise.
A town clock will be a great convenience and once we have it, we will wonder how we got along without it so long.
Nodaway Democrat, Jan. 3, 1895
Some talk is indulged in that the sound of the bell belonging to the court house clock is not near loud enough. We have not had, we think, a fair test of that matter yet. Mr. Keck, of the Hudson firm, is putting a tin roofing over the bell, and when that is done, in a day or two if the weather moderates, the windows will be taken out, and then, we are assured by those who ought to know, that the sound will be very much louder, and, it is thought, entirely satisfactory.
Nodaway Democrat, Jan. 10, 1895
J. V. Embree says he can hear the court house clock strike clearly at his place, two miles from town.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The 50- and 100-year flashbacks are courtesy of the Missouri Digital Newspaper Project from the State Historical Society of Missouri, accessible at shsmo.newspapers.com.
