Chicago: The Land Where Time Began

I've always been fascinated by time zones.  Just the other day in the elevator a man from India was telling his son that India is the only country in the world with a half-hour time zone (India is 10.5 hours ahead of Chicago).

I took the opportunity to correct him and inform him that Canada, Venezuela, Iran, Afghanistan, and Australia also have half-hour time zones.  When I got home I looked it up to be sure, and found that French Polynesia, Burma, and part of New Zealand also have them.

So, where did this mess start?  It turns out right here in Chicago.

In the Loop you will find a plaque marking the location where time zones were invented.  It reads:

THE STANDARD TIME SYSTEM IN THE UNITED STATES

ADOPED ON THIS SITE -- OCTOBER 11, 1883

Chicago's famous Grand Pacific Hotel, then on the site of the present Continental Bank Building, was the location of the General Time Convention of 1883 which, on October 11 of that year, adoped the current Standard Time System in the United States.

The Convention was called by the nation's railroads.  Delegates were asked to develop a better and more uniform time system to govern railroad operations.

Previously, time had been determined by the position of the sun, with high noon as the only existing standard of exact local time.  More than 100 different local times resulted from this method.

The new plan, proposed by William F. Allen, Convention Secretary, established four equal time zones across the country, each one hour ahead of the zone to its west.  All railroad clocks in each zone were to be synchronized to strike the hour simultaneously.

The Standard Time System was inaugurated on November 18, 1883.  On that Sunday, known as the "Day of Two Noons," the Allegheny Observatory at the University of Pittsburgh transmitted a telegraph signal when it was exactly noon on the 90th meridian.  Railroad clocks throughout the United States were then reset on the hour according to time zone.

Although implemented by the railroads, the Federal Government, states, and cities began to use the system almost immediately.  On March 18, 1918, Congress formally asknowledged the plan by passing the Standard Time Act.

THIS PLAQUE PRESENTED TO

CONTINENTAL BANK

BY

THE MIDWEST RAILWAY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC.

November 18, 1971

Incidentally, the bank building that replaced the hotel on this site is now being converted into a J.W. Marriott hotel.  What once was old is new again.