
Coquina Clock Tower - Daytona Beach, FL
N 29° 13.767 W 081° 00.475
17R E 499230 N 3233407
The Coquina Clock Tower is included in the 1999 listing of the Daytona Beach Bandshell and Oceanfront Park Complex on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Waymark Code: WM6VZ6
Location: Florida, United States
Date Posted: 07/25/2009
Views: 23
From
The National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors, Inc. website:
Daytona Beach's Famous Boardwalk Coquina Clock Tower Story
Written by Randy Jaye
Contributions from Jim Zeisler and Tom Bransford
The Coquina Clock Tower in Daytona Beach's Oceanfront Park was added to the United States National Register of Historic Places on March 5, 1999. It has stood as a symbolic landmark for the "World's Most Famous Beach" since 1938. Its four, one-of-a-kind, clock dials [which are actually transparent] feature the twelve letters of the city (D-A-Y-T-O-N-A-B-E-A-C-H) instead of the traditional one through twelve numerals. The original clockworks were a mid-1930s vintage Seth Thomas timepiece that was operated through a system of weights and pulleys, but it was converted to electricity some time before 1989. The Clock Tower's design is so unique and eye-catching that it magnetically attracts people of all ages who stop and look at it with admiration. The architect, Allen J. McDonough, used beautiful native Florida coquina rock, which was quarried locally, to build this impressive Clock Tower structure.
Construction on the Clock Tower started in 1936 as part of a Work Progress Administration (WPA) project to develop Boardwalk Park, and build the band shell and Clock Tower. The entire project cost $268,000 (in 1936 monetary value.) The Boardwalk Park and its band shell and Clock Tower were officially dedicated on July 4, 1938, and the celebration had over 5,000 people in attendance.
In 1989, the Clock Tower was renamed by the city's Historic Preservation Advisory Board in honor of the famed automotive speedster, Sir Malcolm Campbell, who set several land speed records in the1920s and 1930s in Daytona Beach.