Henry Ford Had To Design A Special Watch Because Detroit Ran On Its Own Time

Daylight saving time happened again, and even though it happens every year, I am shocked at just how jarring it is for darkness to fall at 5:30 p.m. There are many good arguments for keeping the spring forward, fall back, time dance, but in Detroit the seasonal swing is just so stark. Detroit is in the Eastern Standard Time Zone, and to my east coast writers, this makes no sense. Clearly, Detroit should be Central time, and for a while it was. How Detroit, and most (but not all) of Michigan ended up on Eastern Standard Time is, predictably, very weird.

Detroit has never been a normal town. It was founded in 1701 by a guy who wasn’t even supposed to be down this way, has the busiest border crossing between the U.S. and Canada owned by one guy, and once hosted the largest factory in the world, which turned into the largest abandoned factory in the world. And when Standard Time came around, Detroiters took one look at it and said “absolutely not.”

First, a little history. Before railroads became a thing in the U.S., time was very localized. When railroads began running through every state on tighter and tighter schedules, this caused a lot of chaos, including a ton of steam engine collisions, which were wild. In 1883, the U.S. and Canada standardized time zones, rather than leaving it up to locals who pointed to the sky or the church clock as their measurement for time. Most cities followed suit, except for one: Detroit.

It wasn’t until 1900 that the city council even voted to join Standard Time, being the last major U.S. city to do so. The Michigan state legislator voted to join Central Time Zone in 1885, but the state’s largest city wouldn’t budge. And I mean, I get it. Why should Detroit change its time when it was the center of the universe? 

Predictably, this caused problems, especially for Michigan’s favorite son Henry Ford. Ford had been an avid watchmaker since childhood, repairing friend’s watches for free just for the experience. These watches also came in handy while racing early automobiles, Ford’s true passion. Because of his hometown’s recalcitrance to join the rest of the country’s time, Ford even designed a two-dial watch; one dial for standard time, the other for “sun” or Detroit time. What a pain. 

How Michigan finally got into the Eastern Standard Time Zone is hilarious and slightly frustrating story. When Detroit city council voted to join the rest of the state on Central Time, which would require city clocks to turn back a whole 28 minutes, many in the city balked at this “dehumanizing” time practice. One citizen even offered to build a sun dial in front of city offices so that the time debate could be settled once and for all by that great glowing time indicator in the sky. City council declined the offer — smart, considering all the sunless days Detroit suffers under. The pushback was enough to make the city council walk back its own vote. It wouldn’t be until 1905 that Central Time was the official time of all of Detroit. 

Almost immediately, people were simply not having it. An organization called the More Daylight Club was founded in 1907 to encourage Michigan to join the Eastern Standard time zone. They were sick of the sun setting at 7 p.m. on summer nights, and wanted to snatch more of the post-work day sun for themselves. Many even today assume it was the auto industry that pushed for the change but, while it might seem like it would benefit the auto industry to be in the same time zone as Wall Street, the More Daylight Club was actually founded by a throat surgeon and a portrait photographer. Instead of industrial pressure, the time zone was changed via good, old-fashioned knocking on doors and educating the public, the More Daylight Club brought the issue to vote several times before they won Eastern Standard Time for Detroit in 1914 and it went into effect the following year. 

Which then threw the whole state into a tizzy. First Detroit didn’t want standard time, now it was in an entirely different time zone. How could the largest city in the state be on a different time zone than everyone else? It couldn’t, and eventually Detroit would dragged nearly the whole state with it into Eastern Standard by 1931. To date, only four counties in Michigan maintain Central Time; Dickinson, Gogebic, Iron and Menominee counties. All of these counties can be found on the western portion of the Upper Peninsula along the boarder with Wisconsin. 

The More Daylight Club got its wish. The sun doesn’t set on June 21 until 10:42 p.m. — that’s a lot of daylight. We just have to live with the creeping darkness of the Eastern Standard Time Zone in the depths of winter, when the sun is fully set before 5 p.m. in December.