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What’s the Deal With: The Bellingham National Bank clock?

A timepiece relic with Roaring ’20s opulence

By David Nuñez News Intern

Adorned with cathedral-like stained glass on the corner of East Holly Street and Cornwall Avenue sits a gilded-age clock on the Bellingham National Bank building.

The clock was installed on Aug 26, 1927, at the height of the Roaring ’20s and was gear-operated with chimes that went off every 15 minutes. In the ’80s, the clock’s original mechanism was replaced and updated with a smaller system that left the inside of it nearly empty, according to Jeff Jewell, a Whatcom Museum historian.  

A complementary clock was installed in Fairhaven on the corner of Harris Avenue and 12th Street in 1973 at what today is called Sycamore Square, Jewell added. 

Currently, three out of the four clock faces are non-functioning, but Daylight Properties, the owners of the clock and the building it rests on, said it has been working to fix it for the past two months and will continue to do so until it is fully repaired.  

The last reported major repair for the clock was nearly a decade ago in 2014.  

The clock and the building it rests on are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


WTD is published online Mondays and in print Fridays. Have a suggestion for a “What’s the Deal With?” inquiry? Email us at newstips@cascadiadaily.com.

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