Print Story
E-mail Story
Lost Treasures: Beale Memorial Clock Tower
| Wednesday, Nov 8 2006 12:16 PM
Last Updated: Wednesday, Nov 8 2006 12:03 PM
Beale Memorial Clock Tower
Photos:
Aerial view of downtown Bakersfield & Beale Clock Tower at 17th & Chester circa 1946.
Beale Clock Tower
Beale Clock Tower
The 64-foot clock tower has stood on the Kern County Museum grounds for the past four decades, but it didn’t always reside there. The story of the clock goes back long before the re-location to the museum in 1964.
Truxtun Beale, son of the long-time owner of Tejon Ranch, General Edward Beale, donated the clock to the city in 1904. It was named for his mother Mary Edwards Beale.
Back then the clock sat in the intersection of 17th Street and Chester Avenue. Not on a corner, but right smack in the middle of both streets.
The brick tower anchored Chester Avenue for 48 years. Five-foot long dials turned and a thousand-pound bell rang regularly until 1952, the year of the Kern County earthquake that measured 7.7 on the Richter scale. Aftershocks a month after the main quake caused more damage to the tower, and the city council moved quickly to dismantle what remained.
By the time of the earthquake, automobile traffic on Chester Avenue had increased dramatically, and undoubtedly factored in the decision to relocate the tower.
“It was tall, impressive, and if you were in a car, to look up to see it you'd have to stick your head out the window,” said George Gilbert Lynch, who has written extensively about Bakersfield history.
Leo J. Pierucci who has been a banker in Bakersfield for 69 years, remembers riding his bicycle under the tower in the 1920s, and stopping for a drink of water underneath the structure.
When the clock tower was rebuilt and dedicated at the museum grounds in 1964, some of the salvaged material from the original clock was used in the replica. But by that point all of the original bricks had disappeared.
Over a half-century has gone by since the tower came down, but there is still frustration that the iconic clock tower was moved from 17th and Chester.
Bakersfield historian Chris Brewer says the city leaders at the time were determined to remove the clock tower, rather than rebuild it after the quake.
“They slipped in with wrecking crews very quickly and clawed it down to one story. And then when it came down to the ground, they were decrying it as a public safety hazard,” Brewer said.
Dave Cross, an architect and lifelong Bakersfield resident, remembers how startled he was as a young boy by how “dominant” the tower appeared.
“It was grand; it was very grand,” he said.
“It’s just an absolute shame it’s not there now. If we’d have had the same kind of environmental interest and so on in that era, surely it would have been preserved,” Cross lamented.