Courtesy / City of Biddeford
The mechanical workings of the Biddeford City Hall clock have been restored.
October 15, 2019
Biddeford tower clock ticks again, telling time for a new downtown
Courtesy / Heart of Biddeford
The 124-year-old clock atop Biddeford's City Hall has been repaired, restored to its mechanical operation, and reinstalled.
By Staff
As ground broke last week for redevelopment of the former Lincoln Mill in Biddeford, one of four projects that may bring new life to the city’s mill district, a smaller project sprang to life a few blocks away.
On Thursday, the century-old clock atop Biddeford City Hall was reinstalled after a nearly year-long restoration. Once again, the clock displayed the time from four dials overlooking Main Street — each one now featuring new redwood hands, covered in gold leaf.
Balzer Family Clock Works, of Freeport, overhauled the E. Howard & Co. clock after Biddeford received a $150,000 grant in 2018 from the American Express Partners in Preservation program. The program, a partnership of the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the American Express Foundation, awarded the funds on the basis of a national online voting contest.
The grant funding allowed the clock to be restored without the use of any taxpayer funding.
“It is wonderful to look up on Main Street and see the clock showing the correct time,” said Mayor Alan Casavant in a news release. “The community has been buzzing with support for this project since the grant competition began last year, and now we can finally say that It’s Our Time to feel pride in this landmark once again.”
The clock was originally installed in the tower in the early 1900s as a pendulum-driven, completely mechanical timepiece, according to the city. Around the 1960s, electric motors replaced some of the components, driving the clock’s hands and striking its chime.
Balzer restored the clock to its original mechanical operation, adding pulleys, weights and a pendulum bob that were long missing. The company also installed an automatic winding system so city staff won't have to wind the clock manually.
The exterior also got a facelift, with the new hands and new glass dials. Woodwork surrounding the clock will be repaired by June 2020, according to the release.
“This beautifully restored clock stands here as a reminder of the people who came to Biddeford, built Biddeford, and brought their families here from countries all over the world,” said Delilah Poupore, executive director of Heart of Biddeford, a nonprofit group that organized the successful bid for the preservation funds.
The clock’s chime once summoned mill workers to their shifts. Now it may tell the time for luxury apartment dwellers, hotel guests and customers of retails shops planned for the $50 million Lincoln project.
Biddeford City Hall, listed on the National Historic Register, was designed by noted Portland architect John Calvin Stevens in 1895 to replace the previous City Hall building that had been destroyed in a fire. The clock tower was added to Maine Preservation’s annual list of the state’s most endangered properties in 2014.
Biddeford officials last year said the tower needs a complete revamp at an estimated cost of $3 million, but the clock restoration was a start.
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments