Colgate Clock - Clarksville, Indiana

Colgate Clock - Clarksville, Indiana

Exploring Indiana's Historic Sites,
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 South East Edition

Colgate Clock
1410 S Clark Blvd
Clarksville, IN 47129

The Colgate Clock is the second largest timepiece in the world, exceeding London's Big Ben. Measuring forty feet in diameter with hands of sixteen and twenty and a half feet respectively, the Colgate Clock has been a major Southern Indiana landmark for nearly seven decades, since it was first illuminated on November 17, 1924. City authorities used 1,607 bulbs outlining the letters, hands and hour marks. The bulbs' output totaled 28,000 watts.
The clock is easily discernible from across the Ohio River in Louisville, KY. The Colgate Clock sits atop the former Colgate Palmolive factory in Clarksville that occupies a former prison called the Indiana Reformatory South. Colgate Palmolive purchased the building in 1921 after a fire damaged the building. The State of Indiana moved the prison to Pendleton, Indiana. The Colgate Palmolive Company moved the clock from Jersey City, NJ in 1924. The Colgate Clock is a Seth Thomas masterpiece designed by Colgate engineer Warren Day in 1906. The clock still keeps time and the neon lights still illuminate it by night, even though Colgate Palmolive no longer uses the building.
The clock is a movie star, as it appears in the movie The Insider.

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