Collinsville clocks in From staff reports The Weekly Post Published November 20, 2009 In 1951, the DeKalb County courthouse was to be torn down and it was decided to model the new courthouse without a clock tower. Commissioner Sam Bruce made a motion to give the clock to the town of Collinsville and the resolution was passed. Walter Weaver, a Collinsville resident, was in charge of the clock, so his grandson, Jackie Weaver, along with Ladon Gilliland and Wallace "Rabbit" Teague transported the clock to Collinsville and put in on top of the Cricket Theatre, the tallest building in town. "We used a winch on an A-frame to get it up there," Jackie Weaver said Friday. Jackie's father, Millard, built the theatre in 1945. The clock worked until sometime in the 1990s and was eventually taken down in 2004. "It had been vandalized and was in disrepair," Jackie Weaver said. Friday, the renovated clock, a 1924 Seth Martin No. 16, was unveiled inside city hall. The tale between 2004 and 2009 is long and has many interesting twists. When the clock was brought down, most residents feared it would never again grace their town. The story was big enough that the Associated Press to pick it up and Jim Gramlich, a member of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, read the stories and was interested. Gramlich contacted Collinsville's Brenda Turbyfill, a member of the Collinsville Historical Society. She got the clock to his Pensacola, Fla. home and it underwent a cosmetic restoration. However, it was still missing some of the parts to make it work. "When the clock came down, nobody around here had any idea which part went where," Turbyfill said. "But we got it to Gramlich in April of 2004 and he had it back by November." After the clock got back to Collinsville, Walt Wilson got it to his garage in Huntsville and got it to working again. A $10,000 grant from the Alabama Historical Commission, as well as help from several chapters of the NAWCC helped make it a reality. Finding the necessary parts proved to be a problem. They were eventually found in Minneapolis and in Rochester, N.Y. Not all the parts were found, however. Wilson's neighbor, Les Willey, made the rest in his machine shop. For the time being, the clock sits in the lobby of city hall. "I hope it's not in its permanent home," said mayor Johnny Traffenstedt. "We hope to find a place for it, within a reasonable time." After Friday's unveiling, NAWCC member Jim Coulson showed Traffenstedt some architectural drawings of existing clock towers, as possibilities. "We have the bells and can make the dials," Coulson said. "Getting a tower to put them in is the next step." Members of the his Share | Save | Mail | Print | Comment