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The Clock Tower is easily the most recognizable landmark on Whitman’s campus. For the past 125 years, it has watched over generations of Whitman students from atop Memorial Building, its bell tolling in constant companionship.

Located at the heart of campus, the Clock Tower is many people’s first impression of the college—although few ever get the opportunity to venture into the structure itself. Atop a staircase on the building’s third floor sits a lone door that provides access to the tower’s interior.

Just beyond the door sits the Memorial Chapel, once the site of religious services, glee club concerts and debates. Now a storage space, the pews are stacked in one corner, and the bell’s old tolling hammer is tucked away with desks of years gone by.

In the bell room, the original bell from the late 1890s now operates automatically, continuing to ring across the Walla Walla Valley as it did more than a century ago—180 times a day, 5,400 times a month, 65,700 times a year.

A ladder in the corner leads to a room with clock faces on each of the four walls. Once turned by mechanical clockworks that had to be wound every eight days, an electric-powered machine now turns the hands, marking each of the precious minutes we spend at Whitman College.

The Clock Tower Through Time