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Farewell, Father Time
Wed Dec 29, 2004
Listen in RealAudio 
Farewell to the father of time-and -temperature, next on the Weather Notebook
Hi, I’m Bryan Yeaton, and this is The Weather Notebook. Today, correspondent Bob Henson bids adieu to man who took temperature to the streets.
How often have you looked up to see what time it was, and then waited for a second to check the temperature, too? Those classic signs that alternate between time and temperature weren’t always part of the American landscape. They arrived in 1950, thanks to Luke Williams, who died on April 5 of this year. Luke, then in his mid-20s, and his brother Chuck embarked on a small sign business out of their father’s garage, in Spokane, Washington. When a local bank announced it was building an eight-story building, the brothers saw a chance to make their mark.
The bank wanted time and temperature displays, but there wasn’t enough room for both on the sign. The brothers found an electric clock maker in Illinois who built a switch to make the clock could alternate between time and temperature every few seconds. The sign was a sensation, but banks outside Spokane balked at the high cost. Ingeniously, the brothers decided to lease their invention rather than selling it, and they agreed to fix any problems within 36 hours. The rest was signage history, and the brothers’ company went on to develop gigantic scoreboards for college and pro stadiums. Bank clocks are where many Americans first saw temperatures in metric as well as English units.
Unfortunately, many bank clocks are wildly inaccurate. Usually it’s because of exposure to sunlight or poor ventilation. For example, on a hot August afternoon several years ago, a bank near the University of Nebraska sported a toasty reading of 179°. Celsius or Fahrenheit? It probably wouldn’t matter.
The Weather Notebook is a program of the Mount Washington Observatory. Visit any of our shows at www.weathernotebook.org. We are funded by Subaru of America.
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