Time finally caught up with the Rotary clock on of Cleveland Avenue and Winnipeg Street this morning.
The 400-lbs, light blue steel clock, put up by the Rotary Club sometime between 1984 and 1985, was removed without fanfare at around 8 a.m.
But those with nostalgic notions need not fear, the clock will be acknowledged for its place in Squamish history.
The old clock, built by then president of Rotary Club, Derek Hughes, will be given to the Squamish Historical Society.
"It would have been disrespectful to the president to throw it away," said current Rotary vice-president Don Patrick. "It was the town clock and it added character to downtown. The tourists looked at it and really, for a long time, it was the only clock around here."
It had been malfunctioning for the last five years, showing different times on its four faces, so now it will be replaced by a new digital clock as soon as the landowner on which the clock sits sign an easement agreement.
The modern version is cast in aluminum and powered by a more reliable global positioning system (GPS). It was bought for $16,000 US from a Chicago company, said Patrick.
As the clock came down, locals shared their memories.
For as long as it was there, Carl Ingraham climbed up a ladder twice a year to change the clock's four faces to reflect daylight saving time in spring, and again to turn it back in the fall.
Ingraham's father was a Rotary club member at the time that Ingraham committed to changing the time every year. When a rainstorm sliced away the Rotary logo a couple of years ago, it was Ingraham again who volunteered to put up a new logo.
On Thursday morning, he was there to help remove the clock. He said the clock broke down because it wasn't designed to be outside.
"It's meant to be in an office or an building. Now, here it's in a steel box that becomes an oven in the summer time and a fridge in the winter. The equipment just wasn't designed to operate in that kind of an environment," he said.
The clock still has some use, albeit as a momento of Squamish history. The Squamish Historical Society plans to put it outside the Wilkie building at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park, said society vice-president Mike Jenson.
"We won't fix it and when the time stops, it stops, it's history."
