Loveland, Colorado’s, Struggles With a Great Old Clock

Every town in Colorado has something that has been around "forever;" something that helps give the town its character. When that something is a troublesome clock, it becomes hard to enjoy it.

It seems you see less and less clocks around any town; maybe because we're finding that it's hard to maintain those clocks, regardless of if they get hit by lightening or not.

Loveland, Colorado may be coming its wits end with their old one in Downtown. Has it come time to just take the clock down, as opposed to seeing it as it is?

A clock that dates back to 1910 sits along 4th Street in Downtown Loveland. For decades the clock not only gave you the time, but looked great on the sidewalk Alas, like many things, time itself has taken its toll on the old clock.

The clock was installed by a pair of brothers who were jewelers at 239 East 4th Street, Brannan Brothers, when they opened in 1910. For many, many years, that space had always been a jewelry store; it would have different owners and names, but it was always jewelry.

According to the Reporter-Herald, 2005 was the last time that the location held a jewelry store (Rydquist Jewelers), as it's been several different kinds of businesses since then; all of which have had the clock, now owned by the city, sitting outside.

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The clock, which reportedly now runs on batteries, has always had a hard time keeping correct time, but then it stopped completely in 2018. The city has had a hard time finding persons who know how to work on such a clock.

It was in spring of 2024, that I found that things had gotten worse for the clock, as the "minute" hand had fallen off inside of the clock.

Then, before summer of 2024 arrived, the city had found someone who could help with the clock. Sighs of relief echoed across downtown when people saw them working on it.

It was great to see the old clock working again, with all its hands going around. But just as I was going to write a story about how one side of the clock said one time, and the other side a completely different time, we all realized that the clock had decided to just "stop," again.

They did get it to read the same time on both sides of the clock, however. As the saying goes, "It's 5:00 Somewhere:"

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Adding to the question of "what to do about that clock" conversation, is the fact that the city will be undergoing a big streets project, expanding the sidewalks out further. Wil that mean that they'll just let go of the "broken" clock after all these years, or will they find a way to make it work, correctly?