REMOVED US Hydrographic Office Time Ball -- Galveston TX
N 29° 18.323 W 094° 47.617
15R E 325802 N 3243154
The US Navy's Hydrographic Office at Galveston operated a time ball from 13 Dec 1901 to 09 Nov 1919. Thanks to Galveston's Rosenberg Library's Casey Greene and to Tom at the Galveston Historical Foundation for their help finding historic photos.
Waymark Code: WMG424
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/09/2013
Views: 13
The US Navy's Hydrographic Office operated a time ball for 20 years on the E. S. Levy Bldg, which was sold & renamed City Natl Bank Bldg in 1908. *This time ball never moved to another building.*
The Navy ordered Galveston's time ball decommissioned and discarded on 09 Nov 1919, as it (with all other time balls) was rendered obsolete by wireless radio broadcasts.
While the Levy building still stands, photos, newspaper articles, and US Govt maritime publications are all we have left of the official Galveston time ball.
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GALVESTON DAILY NEWS MAY 4 1901: Time Ball System To Be Inaugurated Here If There Are Funds Sufficient.
Some days ago Julius Runge, president of the Cotton Exchange, B. Adoue, president of the Maritime Association, and Wm. F. Ladd, president of the Chamber of Commerce, directed a letter to the Secretary of the Navy asking for the establishment of a time ball system at Galveston. The following reply was received yesterday:
Washington DC April 30. – Sirs, Replying to your letter of the 22nd Instant, I have to inform you that the Chief of the Bureau of Equipment reports as follows:
“The Bureau recognizes that Galveston is one of the most important seaports on our gulf coast, and the great increase in the amount of deep-sea shipping that enters and departs from that port renders it advisable that a time ball system should be established at this point.
“The Bureau has to state, however, that the funds available for this purpose in the Hydrographic Office will not permit the establishment of a time ball system at Galveston during the present fiscal year, but the Bureau recommends that as soon as practicable during the coming fiscal year there should be established at the port of Galveston, in connection with the Hydrographic Office now there, a suitable time ball system for the benefit of commerce.”
In view of the above report, which is approved, the department has authorized the Bureau of Equipment to take the necessary steps to install a time ball system at the port of Galveston, Tex., in connection with the branch Hydrographic Office now there as soon as practicable after July 1, only if the appropriations of the Bureau available for that purpose should warrant such action.
Very respectfully, F. W.HACKETT
HOUSTON DAILY POST AUG 9TH, 1901: Island City News Items, The Time Ball
Galveston Texas, August 8. – At the instance of the head office in Washington, Lieutenant Jacob, United States Army, in charge of the branch hydrographic office here, has obtained permission from E. S. Levy & Co. to place a time ball on the roof of that building. Lieutenant Jacob has no idea when the necessary material for installing the time ball will be sent here, but the fact that the department has ordered him to secure the permission for its erection is indicative one will be placed in Galveston.
GALVESTON DAILY NEWS NOV 8 1901: Time Ball System. The Galveston Hydrographic Office Will Have A Time Ball Soon. What It Means To Mariners. Touching An Electric Button At Washington Drops All The Balls At Noon
Lieutenant Edwin R. Jacob, United States Navy, in charge of the Galveston office of the Hydrographic Department is seeking proposals for a shelter shed for the time ball apparatus. This work is preliminary for the erection of a time ball in this city in the latter part of this month.
The announcement that the department had decided to locate a time ball at Galveston was made early in the year, but the appropriation was not available until the 1st of July, and it being a government contract, a great deal of time was consumed awarding the work. Finally a firm at Norfolk Virginia was given an order for two time balls, one for Duluth and the other for Galveston. Work was concentrated on the Duluth job because the department is anxious to get it in place before the shipping season closes on the lake, which is usually about November 16th. This interesting feature of the Hydrographic office will prove a valuable acquisition to the service afforded mariners and the shipping interests at Galveston by both the hydrographic office and the weather bureau.
The ball will be installed on top of a pole on the roof of the Levy Building and will be dropped by electricity exactly at noon, Washington time, each day. The Hydrographic Office has time balls at Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Savannah, New Orleans, San Francisco and Fortress Monroe for the special benefit of sea-faring men, besides one at the torpedo station at Newport R.I. and one at the Navy Yard at Mare Island, California, for use of the Navy. While these time balls are intended as an aid to navigation, seafaring men have no monopoly in their enjoyment. Anybody can see them and there is no law against a landlubber setting his watch or regulating his clock by the falling of the big brass sphere from its perch on the top of the pole. Every ball is dropped exactly at noon, Washington time, which is exactly one hour faster than Galveston time. They are connected on one grand circuit and when the operator at Washington touches a button at noon, they will all let go together and come down by the run, as the nautical men would say.
It sometimes happens that there is some delay at the post, and then the department issues information by telegraph giving the variation in the fall from the true time. It also happens sometimes that these balls get away a second or so ahead of the time and then the correction is made just the same as if there had been a delay.
It is very important to navigators that their chronometers be correct. The fraction of a second which would not amount to much if occurring in a kitchen clock may throw a ship fall out of her course and fetch her up on some inhospitable beach if the vessel’s chronometer is out of kilter. So the Hydrographic Office tries to give to sailors the exact time every day so they may rate their chronometers and discover if they are running according to their established rating.
The Galveston office is fast growing in popularity with seafaring men who visit the port. The Lieutenant in charge boards every vessel as soon as possible after her arrival, and as the existence of the office here becomes better and better known, the service is receiving more and more aid in the way of observations and reports from shipmasters visiting the port. There are now on file complete sets of marine charts, including those issued by the hydrographic office, the British Admiralty, and other services from which standard charts are issued. These charts together with standard workings in navigation and all matters pertaining thereto, are on file in the office, and open to the inspection of those interested. Now that the office is open here, the wonder is that sailormen visiting the port have been able to get along without it so long.
The office is supplied with standard thermometers and barometers both aneroid and mercurial, which shipmasters may compare their instruments, but the main interest in the office to landsmen will enter in the big time ball, and it will be looked for with a lot of interest by those who care to know just when it is high noon in this good land of ours.
GALVESTON DAILY NEWS NOV 12 1901: Time Ball Has Arrived.
The time ball has arrived, with all the necessary attachments and appliances for its operation. The material, which was manufactured at the factory ready to set up in position, is stored in a vacant building on Market Street awaiting the awarding of a contract to for putting it together. Lieutenant Jacob, United States Navy, is charge of the Hydrographic office here, was receiving proposals yesterday for the construction of a small shelter house and the placing of the ball in position. He expects to have the apparatus set up and ready for service either the latter part of this week or the first part of next week. The ball is not unlike a large football in shape and appearance. It is made of heavy canvas painted black and is about ten feet in circumference and four feet high. Although hollow, it is not inflated like a football but is supported by a wire frame work on the inside and has a hole at either end, through which the 20-foot steel pole passes. The ball will rest at the top of the brass ornamented staff and be held in place by a hook arrangement attached to the electric machinery in the shelter house. The electric circuit will be controlled by the Western Union office, and at noon every day the ball will be released from the top of the pole and slide down and out of view, disappearing into a steel receptacle at the base of the pole. This is Lieutenant Jacob’s first experience with time ball construction, and he is not very familiar with the valuable invention. The blueprints and documents forwarded from Washington are about as complicated and puzzling as could be desired for expert electricians and expert mechanics, but Uncle Sam says it’s all right, and that when put up the whole business will be so plain and simple that a child could understand it.
GALVESTON DAILY NEWS, DEC 4, 1901: The Time Ball
The time ball which the United States government has erected on the Levy Building in charge of the branch Hydrographic office is not actually in operation and will not be until the formal authority is received from Washington and due notice given the public through the press. People who are worried over the dropping of the ball every morning should remember that it is being tested and experimented with before being formally installed in the service of Uncle Sam. When the ball starts regulating the exact time for the navigators, it will drop at 11 o’clock Galveston time or twelve o’clock Washington time. The time ball is new in Galveston, and many people seem to be greatly distressed about how to regulate their watches and clocks. As one man said the other day, “the scheme is a good one I think, but I won’t imagine how it is going to be so valuable in its practical operation. If I happened to get in the neighborhood about eleven o’clock to watch the ball drop, I know that it is exactly eleven o’clock in Galveston and twelve o’clock in Washington, but should I arrive about a minute after the ball drops and disappears in the house, I can’t tell the exact time.” This is the impression many people have about the time ball, which has been adopted for the benefit of mariners and navigators. The chronometers of the vessels will be compared with the chronometers in the branch office of the Hydrographic office at Galveston which will be regulated by the fractional second by the time ball. The ball will be raised to the top of the pole by hand five minutes before 11 a.m., and the telegraph instrument in the hydrographic office will click the seconds up to two seconds before the hour. When a signal in the instrument announces that it is 10:55:58 a.m. and Lieutenant Jacob, in charge of the office, throws a small switch so the electric current will break the circuit and drop the ball precisely on the second.
NOTICE TO MARINERS NO. 281: Published Monthly by the US Coast & Geodetic Survey
Jan 1902
19. Galveston – Time Signal Established. – Information dated December 13, 1901 has been received from the branch of the Hydrographic Office at Galveston that a time ball has been put into operation on the roof of the Levy Building at Galveston.
The time ball is dropped daily (Sundays excepted) at exactly 11:00:00:00, Greenwich Mean Time. This instant of time is marked by the beginning of the fall of the ball. The ball is hoisted 5 minutes before 11 a.m. standard time. In case of failure to make signal, the ball will be lowered after 11:05:00 a.m. standard time.
GALVESTON DAILY NEWS, SEP 17 1908: Time Ball Notice
The US branch hydrologic office time ball, on staff at Levy Building, dropped today at exactly 11 a. m. standard time at the 90th meridian . . . .
GALVESTON DAILY NEWS, SEP 20 1908: Time Ball Notice.
The US branch hydrographic office time ball, on staff of City National Bank Building, failed to drop today. The signal was received from the Naval Observatory at Washington, but the detaching apparatus failed to release the ball.
GALVESTON DAILY NEWS SEP 23 1908: Time Ball Notice
The United States hydrologic office time ball, on staff at City National Bank Building, dropped today at exactly 11 a. m. standard time at the 90th meridian . . . .
GALVESTON DAILY NEWS SUNDAY, NOV 9, 1919: “Time Ball” Signal Ordered Eliminated. Mariners in Gulf Have Depended For Years on Dropping of Sphere
Galveston’s famous “time ball” is no more. Navigators in the vicinity of Galveston who have for years sought out with the aid of their glasses the well-known sphere on the roof of the City National Bank Building, maintained by the government’s hydrographic bureau, will hereafter scan the city’s sky-line in vain for the familiar signal announcing the hour of 11 a.m.
The Galveston branch hydrologic office has been directed by the navy department to discontinue the dropping of the “time ball, which has for many years indicated the exact time to mariners in the Gulf of Mexico and Galveston harbor.” The navy now broadcasts time signals by wireless from Arlington, Va. and Key West, Fla., and the mariner is no longer dependent on time signals received from shore stations. The operators at the Galveston radio station also flash the exact time to vessels at sea when asked to do so.
Citizens of Galveston, who apparently have paid scant attention to the regular dropping of the time ball at exactly 11 a.m. in years past, have suddenly come to believe that the time-honored signal was maintained for their especial benefit, according to local hydrographers. No sooner had the big ball failed to rise to the tip of the staff preparatory to its accustomed fall at the usual hour than anxious inquiries crowded each other on the bureau’s telephone, “The time ball didn’t fall. What’s the matter?” was the gist of the queries.
They were advised of the government’s action, and that the hydrographic office will soon be moved from its present location to the third floor of the Federal custom house building. Preparations for moving are now underway and the batteries and other “appurtenances” of the “time ball” will be dismantled and placed in the discard, victims of modern scientific development.
The correct time to the nearest half second will, however, be available at the Galveston branch hydrographic office between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.
Type: Time Ball
In service: no
Time of signal: 11.00
Year established (if known): 1901
Year decommissioned (if applicable): 1919
Address:
2221-2225 Market St.
Galveston, Texas 77550
Weblink (if any): [Web Link]
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