STEDMAN CLOCK DAMAGED

Willa Stedman Vanderburg '53, Shirley Stedman Laroff '49, and Jim Vanderburg '53 hold one of the faces of the damaged Stedman clock.

picture by

MARK MARTINEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Friday, October 26, 2007
Fullerton clock strikes uncertainty
Strong winds topple prominent Fullerton clock, which now has a cloudy future.
By BARBARA GIASONE
The Orange County Register

FULLERTON – Time stood still early last Monday when violent winds whipped a city tree into the landmark 1910 Stedman street clock at 109 N. Harbor Blvd.
Branches smashed the glass, the neon tubing and the metal support – knocking the timepiece from its cast-iron pedestal.
The metal hands were stopped at 4:30.
On Thursday, Willa Vanderburg and Shirley Laroff were in a storage area at the city maintenance yard assessing their late parents' treasure that was given local historical status in 1997.
"I'm shocked," Vanderburg said.
Laroff chimed in, "Well, it's compact," after seeing how the face and mechanism of the 14-foot-tall post clock had been reduced to a 24-inch-high pile.
The pedestal and historical plaque remain on the sidewalk.
The Stedman sisters circled the crumbled clock lying on a pallet. Lyman Otley, the city facilities superintendent, said it took three men to remove the broken, 200-pound clock from the sidewalk in the windstorm.
Laroff said her fondest memory was of her father, town jeweler William Stedman, recounting how he and his cronies got together one night in 1940 and lugged the clock westward across the street from its original location at 112 N. Spadra Road (now Harbor Boulevard). He wanted the clock near his new store.
The clock had become the property of Stedman and his wife, Frances, when they bought Stalmer Jewelers in 1929 on the east side of Spadra.
In 1995, the city signed a 99-year lease with the Stedman family to restore and maintain the clock after vandalism and car catastrophes had damaged it through the years.
The next year, the clock was taken down and separated into 11 pieces before it was stripped to its metal, sandblasted, soldered and painted. By New Year's Eve, the restored clock had working dials, neon lights and a new coat of black paint for a dedication ceremony.
Otley contacted a clock repairman to estimate costs to fix the timepiece.
"I was told it could run as much as $15,000 to restore the clock or $10,000 to build a replica using the original face and hands," Otley said. "It would be nice to save the original clock, but I really don't know if that's possible."
City officials have yet to decide whether to restore or to replace the clock.

(Notice that there is a comment posted below about another historical OC clock.)