Left Photo by the late Tim Zdanski Bethesda’s village clock is shown in its original tower atop the Orrison Building on Main Street. It was removed in 2010.

T-L Photo/JENNIFER COMPSTON-STROUGH Carson Lucas, 10, stands next to the World War II canon on the site of a future memorial plaza in Bethesda. Carson is the son of Mayor Martin Lucas.

T-L Photo/JENNIFER COMPSTON-STROUGH
Some of the officials involved in creating a new memorial plaza and clock tower in Bethesda stand on the future site of the project. They include, from left, Mayor Martin Lucas, council President Paul Fitch, business owner Joel Braido, who is donating some of the materials, and Village Administrator Dirk Davis.

BETHESDA — Many people thought time had run out for Bethesda’s village clock, but it soon will chime again in the downtown — thanks to the support of some former residents.

Dedicated to the community’s World War I veterans in 1920, the clock stood high atop the large Orrison Building on Main Street for 90 years. Village Administrator Dirk Davis said the timepiece was dismantled and removed from the aging rooftop in 2010 for safety reasons. At that point, a lot of residents, including Mayor Martin Lucas, thought it likely that the clock would be gone forever.

Davis, however, said he was always confident the clock would be returned to service. Its numerous large pieces and parts were stored away in one of the former Blaney Lumber Mill buildings, now owned by Brian Loase.

Today, six years later, those parts have been sent away to be refurbished, and Davis said they will be reassembled and working again, hopefully by October.

The clock will be the centerpiece of a new memorial park and plaza next to the Municipal Building, located on Main Street just to the south of the clock’s original home. That plaza will be constructed using recycled materials from the former Bethesda school, which closed in 1998. Davis said Joel Braido, owner of the school, plans to demolish the building. Braido will then donate bricks and limestone from the structure for the plaza project.

But Braido is not the only one donating to the effort. Davis said Robert and Brenda Murray, both former Bethesda residents, are providing the funding for the project.

Robert “Bob” Murray is the son of Albert and Mildred Murray, who lived on Virginia Street in Bethesda for decades. Murray said when he was just 9 years old, his father was injured and left paralyzed from the neck down. His mother contracted cancer around the same time but lived with the illness for many years. To help the family deal with those hardships, other village residents found ways to put young Bob to work and to provide them with some of the things they needed.

“My wife, Brenda, and I grew up in the village of Bethesda,” Murray said Friday. “The people in the village of Bethesda were very very good to my mother, my father and me. We had virtually no income, so they gave me 32 lawns to mow to help support Mother and Dad. They gave us their best dog bones and left some meat on, and we boiled them down to make what we called ‘sop’ — that was broth over bread, and that was what we ate.”

Murray graduated from the former Bethesda High School in 1957. Today, he is the owner of Murray Energy Corp., the largest privately owned coal company in the United States. It operates 13 active mines, including several in Eastern Ohio and the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia.

“The people were very kind to us and very good to us — for many years now, I’ve been doing things to give back,” Murray added.

Murray said he helped to completely renovate the Masonic lodge hall in Bethesda, both inside and out. He and Brenda also have helped to pave the roads in Epworth Park; they have donated to make the village Senior Center “more livable;” and they have helped to maintain the Bethesda Methodist Church.

Bob and Brenda Murray were high school sweethearts, according to Davis. Brenda, the daughter of Harry and Inez Moore, was a member of the first graduating class at the consolidated Union Local High School in 1960.

Together, Bob and Brenda Murray recently decided they wanted to do a little something more for the community.

“The village had this beautiful clock on top of the Orrison Building … ,” Bob Murray said. “”Those who grew up there remember that clock chiming every hour on the hour as we grew up. The people miss it, so I decided to try and build a park where we could relocate the WWI memorial … and reestablish the clock itself. … We presented plans to village, and they approved them.”

Murray is especially pleased that the project will incorporate bricks and limestone from the former school, his alma mater, in the lowest level of the clock tower and the surrounding plaza. That is another way the park will help “keep the memory of Bethesda,” he said.

Murray said the project is a massive undertaking. The bell and other clock parts had to be gathered, cleaned and sent away for work. He said only one manufacturer of clocks like the one in Bethesda is still in business. That means replacement parts will be virtually impossible to find, so he said Murray Energy’s machine shops will fabricate any parts that need to be replaced. Murray said the clock will be automated, using hidden motors and its original weights to trip relay switches at the bottom of the tower. The tower also will conceal a GPS unit that will adjust the pendulum and allow the clock to keep perfect time.

In exchange for his help with the effort, Murray said he had just one request — he asked Bethesda Village Council to pass an ordinance prohibiting parking on the east side of South Main Street, where parked vehicles would block the view of the park. Council voted to eliminate the two parking spaces on that side of the street.

Murray is perhaps most excited about the windows on all four side of the tower that will allow passersby to see all the workings of the clock. The mechanical parts and bell previously had been concealed inside the five-story Orrison building.

“I just can’t wait to see the children walking on the sidewalk there or people stopping in cars along the street to see the workings of the clock,” Murray said, revealing that, as an engineer, he is fascinated by the complicated mechanism. “Even adults are going to enjoy just watching.”

With the Murrays’ help, the village is now in the process of refurbishing the clock and preparing to create the new plaza. Davis said the stone monument dedicated to WWI veterans will be relocated from the sidewalk near the VFW site to the entrance of the plaza on the north side of the Municipal Building. The first phase of the project will feature the clock in a newly constructed tower at its center. The cobblestone plaza will be enclosed with brick and limestone walls. The World War II canon currently situated at that spot will be moved to the back of the lot. The new, free-standing clock tower will be about 30 feet tall, according to Davis.

“Bob Murray is a real Bethesda boy, and he’s done a lot to help this town get back up on its feet,” Davis said. “He’s tremendous — I can’t find the words to express how dedicated he and Brenda are to this village.”

Lucas agreed, noting he hopes the completed plaza will one day honor not only military veterans of all wars, but also emergency responders who serve on the homefront.

“Mr. Murray has always remembered his hometown, he’s always been all about Bethesda,” the mayor said. “He has found a lot of ways to help improve our community.”

Davis and Lucas noted the project will include some green space with picnic tables and benches at the rear of the lot, where families or neighbors can gather at any time. They also stressed that they are grateful to all the community members who are making the project possible.

Over the years, Davis said, numerous individuals helped with maintenance and upkeep of the clock. Folks such as Richard “Dick” Reichley, who operated the barber shop across the street for many years, served as one of the clock winders, as did Byron Powell and Shade Wineman. Mike Shepherd replaced broken glass face panels over the years, Richard “Dick” Neuhart fabricated new metal hands for the clock, and Swallie Construction put a new roof and siding on the clock tower at one time. Late in the clock’s life, Ernie Martin installed a modern, automatic winding system that eliminated the need for monthly manual winding.

Lucas hopes to dedicate the completed first phase and rededicate the clock during the village Memorial Day observance in May 2017.

“It’s great that everyone is willing to do some part to make something significant like this come together,” Lucas concluded.