Jacksonville Jacobs Clock Lives Beyond Retirement

The Jacksonville Jacobs Clock is a four-faced time piece that currently  sits at the corner of Adams and Laura streets in downtown. It was originally purchased for $1,200, called the Greenleaf & Crosby clock and placed outside of the Greenleaf & Crosby building at 41 West Bay Street in August 1901, after the Great Fire of Jacksonville.

The 15-foot-tall clock was built by the Seth Thomas Clock Company which began in 1813 and known for their “durability and wide variety” of clocks.The clock was moved to its current location at 208 N. Laura in 1927 in keeping with the Greenleaf Crosby jewelry store. There were some 100 clocks manufactured with this design and less than a dozen remaining.

Roy and Delorise Thomas purchased the jewellery store in the late 1960’s.and had the clock moved.  Through the years it has had to have repairs and adjustments.  The most extensive was in 1973 when it was almost destroyed by a city bus, in the mid 1990’s and 2011 when it was completely removed for roadway improvements. It was returned in working order in 2013. In 1995, the Thomas family donated the clock to the city of Jacksonville.

The Thomas’, owners of the clock retired in August of 2023 as the clock continued to tick on.

See you tomorrow,

Sources: Google AI Overview, The Business Journal, Jax Daily Record, Vaughan Publishing, Nannette V. Ramey