Clock Tower will be down for repairs this summer

The clock tower at the intersection of Lasuen and Escondido Malls will be silent this summer as the mechanism is repaired. (Image credit: L.A. Cicero)

The Clock Tower located between the Barnum Center and the Graduate School of Education will be silent beginning July 16 for about six weeks as the mechanism undergoes repairs.

Zone C Administrator Raina Michel says those members of the campus community accustomed to hearing the quarterly chimes will likely take notice.

Michel says San Francisco clock expert Dorian Clair will remove components of the clock to clean and refurbish them. At the same time, work will be done on the tower structure itself.

“The clock is beloved by the Stanford community and our visitors alike,” says Michel. “I’ve never gone to wind it without someone pressing their nose against the glass to see it more closely.”

According to the Stanford Historical Society’s A Chronology of Stanford University and its Founders, the tower’s bells and clockworks were part of the original steeple of Memorial Church. The tower was a gift from William Kimball, who served as chair of the Stanford Board of Trustees.

The book excerpt from 1983 reads: “Placed in storage after the steeple fell in the 1906 earthquake, the bells and 1901 Seth Thomas clock were installed in a wooden tower behind the church in 1915, then went into storage again when the tower was removed in 1967. Hundreds of volunteer hours went into refurbishing the hand-wound clockworks. Westminster chimes play each quarter hour from 8 a.m. to 7:45 p.m.”