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Today in Jacksonville History: Feb. 15, 1939

Bill Foley
The Jacobs Jewelers clock at the corner of Laura and Adams streets in downtown Jacksonville is shown in August 1975. [Times-Union archives]

The City Council stopped the sun.

Bowing to arguments that people would have to get up earlier and movies would let out later, the council voted unanimously Feb. 15, 1939, to ignore Daylight Savings Time.

The council likewise spurned a suggestion by Councilman-at-large Daniel Kirk that the people be allowed to vote on what time it should be.

Leo Hill, president of the Central Labor Union, said the working man was against setting clocks ahead an hour in the spring.

"We oppose Daylight Saving for the reason that it would make everybody get up an hour ealier and work a hardship on mothers of large families," he said.

The unanimous council action ignored editorial suggestions from the evening newspaper that people who opposed Daylight Savings Time were several bricks short of a full load.

"Some of our astute councilmen seem to have the notion that the daylight plan puts 25 hours in the day, or reduces it to 23 hours, or some such nonsense...There is no hocus-pocus about the daylight saving plan. Any school child will be able to understand it after a minute's explanation."

But Councilman James T. Etheredge, also a member of the School Board, said he could see no good in the change.

"Change the time and schoolchildren would have to get up an hour earlier. The baseball people tell me they are against it. A restaurant man told me his business would be badly affected. It would cost the railroads thousands of dollars, reprinting time tables."

Council President Tom Marshall had no need to call the roll. Daylight Savings Time was shouted down.  

Also on Feb. 15, 1939:

Jacksonville members of the Florida National Guard, National Reserve, Organized Reserve Corps of the Army and American Legion paraded through downtown Jacksonville in observance of National Defense Week.

Jacksonville Junior Chamber of Commerce President Charles E. Bennett urged support of Fort Caroline as a national monument.

The Royal Rollers and Mickey brought their roller skating act to George Washington Hotel Rainbow Room. Ted Shawn and his Men Dancers appeared at the Riverside Theater.

Seattle attorney Hamlet P. Dodd advised Republicans at at a Lincoln Day dinner in Spokane to eat raw beef for breakfast to strengthen their political nerve.

Bill Foley was a Times-Union reporter, editor and columnist for more than 40 years. He’s best known for his quirky columns about Jacksonville and Northeast Florida’s history. He wrote this series of Millennium Moments columns in 1999 leading up to the year 2000. Foley died in 2001 at age 62.