ROCHESTER – A piece of local history is coming back to this community.
Historic clock tower on the rise in Rochester once more
City officials, volunteers break ground on first phase of project; $500,000 fundraiser in the works.
May 17, 2023 at 3:07PM
After eight years, the first phase of a project is underway to reinstall a Seth Thomas Clock Company clock tower more than a century old. City officials, firefighters and volunteers on Tuesday celebrated a groundbreaking for the 50-foot structure, which is set to be built over the next few years near the downtown Rochester fire station off Broadway Avenue S. and 6th Street, a block away from where it was erected in 1898.
"In this instance, people have really taken to heart the importance of the clock tower, the bell, and have just stuck with it through all these years," Mayor Kim Norton said.
City officials paid for the tower to be built, and Rochester residents paid for the clock. It displayed the time in four directions and was installed in 1899.
The tower was a prominent landmark and helped call the city's initial fire station to action in emergencies. It stood until 1930, when officials tore it down to make way for Rochester's expansion.
The clock faces and original bell sat in storage for decades until then-Fire Chief Orville Mertz found it in in the 1970s. Since then, the clock has gone up at First Bank in downtown and later at the Mayo Civic Center, before it was taken down once again in 2015 as the civic center underwent renovations.
Local historian Alan Calavano identified the initial clock tower site. He donated $100,000 in 2015 as a matching grant to restore it, but died the following year. Friends and volunteers have taken up the cause since then, raising about $340,000 to put in a foundation and plaza for the tower, as well as space for community pavers.
That work didn't start until this year due to delays in getting construction materials caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now volunteers say another $500,000 is needed to complete the tower, and they're planning a community fundraiser.
"We've been chasing that carrot at the end of the stick," said Ken Allsen, a friend of Calavano's and a historian who has worked to secure the site. "So now we've got to just get caught up and get this thing built."
The clock tower will have its original mechanical parts. It will take up the corner of 6th and Broadway and will also include a monument to area firefighters and first responders.
Bari Amadio, the executor of Calavano's estate and part of Bring Back the Clock Tower, the nonprofit set up to fund the project, said the tower was the dying wish of Calavano, one of Rochester's most ardent historians. The clock tower once was a gateway to the heart of Rochester. Volunteers hope it will be once more.
"Unless you understand and appreciate the past, you can't chart your future," Amadio said.
