The Floral Clock of Detroit

While searching for images of various timepieces to include in a recent Flickr album, Around the Clock, I found this photo:

A clock made of flowers! It’s the kind of image that makes me stop, think, and look closer, as I’ve never seen such a thing before. It appears to be a functioning clock. What is hidden behind the floral decorations? Is the hill surrounding the back of the clock just as it seems, or does it hide a mechanism? I looked at other photos of the clock in our collections, but naturally they focus on the front design.

So, I looked first for broader context for the photo, and searched by the name of the park mentioned in the caption. This floral clock was in Water Works Park in Detroit, Michigan in the early 20th century. Below you can see another version of the clock and the dramatic standpipe tower in the park. It turns out the clock was powered by water, which seems quite appropriate considering its location. Installed in the 1890s, the story goes that the superintendent of the grounds worked with a local watchmaker to devise a water-driven paddle-wheel system that helped this outdoor clock keep good time for decades.

When the city of Detroit constructed a pumping station and this ornate standpipe tower to provide water to the city in the late 1870s, it also created a public park on the grounds of this necessary utility. The tower was 185 feet tall and Detroiters with the desire and the stamina could march up its internal spiral staircase for views of the park and, once you reached the top, the city’s downtown.

Note that in the first two photos above and in all subsequent images below, the clock face is different. I imagine the petals and blooms had to be changed out with some regularity to keep them alive and fresh through the seasons. It’s wonderful to zoom in on each image and see the details of the designs and imagine them in full, living color.

Here we also see people strolling the park, some carrying parasols or lunch baskets and enjoying the fresh air and lovely landscape.

Learn More:

• Go Around the Clock with this assortment of images from a recent Flickr album.
• Explore more photos of Water Works Park in Detroit in the late 19th and early 20th century.