The Colgate Clock, located at a former Colgate-Palmolive factory in Clarksville, Indiana, is one of the largest clocks in the world. It has a diameter of 40 ft. It was first illuminated in Clarksville on November 17, 1924. It is located directly across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky.
History
Before the building was bought by Colgate, it served as the Indiana Reformatory South. It opened in 1847, replacing the state prison which had opened in Jeffersonville in 1821. In 1919 a fire broke out in the prison, causing extensive damage that would have been very expensive to repair. Instead, the state of Indiana decided to relocate the prison to Pendleton, Indiana. Colgate happened to be looking for a Midwestern location following the post-World War I boom, and heard of the prison's availability. The state sold the Prison to Colgate in 1923. Prisoners, through forced labor, converted the carceral facility to a soap-making plant, and were imprisoned in cells at the location while the conversion took place.
The clock was designed by Colgate engineer Warren Davey and constructed by the Seth Thomas Clock Company for the centennial of the Colgate Company in 1906. It was installed at Colgate-Palmolive facilities in Jersey City, New Jersey, and then moved to Indiana when a larger clock replaced it in 1924.