Clallam County Courthouse: The Bell from Boston
Near Port Angeles, Washington
The red brick Classical Revival courthouse in Port Angeles was built in nineteen fourteen and dedicated on June fourteenth, nineteen fifteen, replacing a wooden structure from eighteen ninety-two. Architect Francis Grant designed it as a two-story building with white columns framing the entrance and a square clock tower rising from the center.
The clock in that tower made a remarkable journey to get here: it was built in Boston in eighteen eighty and shipped around Cape Horn to Seattle, where no buyer claimed it, and the county later bought it and installed it in nineteen fifteen. The building held all county functions until a nineteen seventy-nine addition was connected by an enclosed bridge. Today the original courthouse houses the Clallam County Museum. It stands on the National Register of Historic Places, and the clock from Boston still crowns the tower.
