Effort underway to get courthouse clocks working

There is a move underway in Swift County to get the clock tower on the southeast corner of the courthouse working again.
“I have visited with quite a few residents of the county regarding the clock tower, and generally speaking, the feeling is that it should be restored,” Jim Hilleren told the board of commissioners at their meeting April 6.
Hilleren said there was one resident who made a comment about the clock tower that has stuck with him. “A working clock tower creates a positive image of the county and its residents,” the person told him.
“I thought that kind of hit the nail on the noggin,” Hilleren said. “Instead of having something up there that doesn’t work, this would be positive.”
Going back to the time when the courthouse was constructed in 1897, the dream was to have a working clock in that tower, he said. Nothing got done until 1976. “Then the commissioners had an epiphany. They decided to put a clock in the tower. The timing was good. It was the bicentennial of the country.
“That leads us to today,” Hilleren told commissioners. “The clock has been trouble. It hasn’t worked for quite a number of years. I think we should continue the dream the commissioner and residents had in 1897.
 
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