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Old timers know about and new
comers are sure to have noticed the old board building on the east side of
Mackay's Main Street next door to the City Hall. The old Clock Cigar Shop, with
its square type architectural building front so common to early day business,
may well be one of Mackay's oldest landmarks. Its board and batt siding, peeling
white paint and cracked and broken windows give evidence to its age, and it's
been said that it was moved to its present location from the old town of Houston
with the coming of the railroad early in the 1900's. It is known that one of its
first occupants was the Mackay Miner Newspaper who operated their print shop in
the building until 1917.
It's quite likely that most old timers will
remember more, the elaborate clock that stood like a sentinel on the sidewalk in
front of the small building from whence the cigar shop took its name. You see,
after the newspaper moved to new quarters and before it became a cigar shop, the
small building housed the jewelry store of a Mr. E. Frank.
According to
information in the Mackay Miner newspaper, in February of 1919, jeweler Mr.
Frank had a unique clock mounted outside his shop to bring attention to his
business and provided the city with a community timepiece. The clock was 14 feet
tall, the lighted dial measured 30 inches in diameter, and was adorned with
three street lamp type lights. Its night time appearance was especially
eye-catching. He boasted that it may have been the only one like it in the state
and similar to one on Broadway in New York City. Power for the clock and its
lights was supplied by the Mackay Power and Light Co., but what made the clock
unique was that it had no clock workings inside its lighted dial. The hands were
driven and controlled through wires from a master clock works inside the store.
Mackay had done it again! An electric power system and a main street with street
lights put the town far ahead of its time, but the street clock, was really
something extra.
Ownership of the shop, and the clock, through the years
is sketchy. Charles Donnelly was proprietor during the 1930's and later the
names of Bert Kent and Elmer Peterson have been mentioned. The date of the
change from jewelry store to cigar shop isn't exactly known either, but in 1933
with the repeal of prohibition, ads in Mackay Miner touted the Clock Cigar Shop
as one of the first establishments to offer draft and bottle beer. Old timers
tell of a time when the place sported pool and billiards tables, a good game of
poker, and as the ads suggested, a place "where you may while away your idle
hours." According to some, the rear of the building was once used as an ice
house and stories persist of access pool that was located behind the shop into
which a horse, and another time a "revenuer," became stuck. Though the horse was
promptly pulled out, the unlucky prohibition agent received a less than speedy
rescue.
How long the old street clock remained a fixture on Main Street
is a bit of a mystery. Photographic evidence indicate its existence into the
early 1940's, but nothing later has been found to shed light on when it may have
come down. One story uncovered indicated that it came down the result of a
confrontation with a truck maneuvering into a parking spot on Main Street; with
the truck winning. Another possibility suggested was that it came down in 1955
when the old street lights were replaced with the present, more up to date
fixtures. But whatever the date or circumstances of its demise, it doesn't take
much effort to imagine the prominence it must have added to Mackay's Main Street
in that earlier time.
Contributed by Earl A. Lockie, President of the South Custer County Historical Society
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This page was last updated 12/07/2023