History : SANTA ANA : Time Stands Still for This Landmark

Even as a distant bell chimed marking 2 o’clock on a recent sunny afternoon, the clock atop the William H. Spurgeon Building on 4th Street remained stuck at 8:55.

Although it may not offer the correct time now, for most of the clock’s 78 years Santa Ana residents set their pocket watches by its hands.

Historian Jim Sleeper said the timepiece dates back to 1915 and was built by Spurgeon, the city’s founder.

“Everybody recognizes the clock in the Spurgeon tower. It’s equivalent to Orange’s plaza and the mission at Capistrano or the Old County Courthouse,” he said.

Originally, the clock was the crowning touch on a building constructed by Spurgeon in 1913 on what is now the southwest corner of 4th and Sycamore streets. However, he did not live to see it. He died several months before the clock was installed.

Throughout much of its first year, the clock offered sporadically accurate timekeeping, so much so that a local newspaper ran a story once it began showing the correct time consistently, Sleeper said.

The clock tower once served as a backdrop for a stunt performed in February, 1919, by Jack Williams, also known as the “Original Human Fly.” Listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1979, the clock has a transparent face, with lights behind for illumination at night. Sleeper noted that those lights and the red and green floodlights installed at the base of the tower were kept dark during World War II in accordance with blackout regulations.

Even though its hands are frozen in time, the clock, Sleeper says, serves as a unique reminder of the city’s past: “It’s really the distinguishing landmark. It’s the one thing that the city has that no other city has.”