STRONGSVILLE, Ohio — At the corner of State Route 82 and Pearl Road in Strongsville, the city’s clock tower is a standout.
“Back in the day, not everybody had a watch or an Apple Watch on their hands, right? So that was the central point to know what time it was,” said Brian Jungeberg, a Strongsville native and president of the Strongsville City Club. “That's what everything ran off of for official business, and so then it became later like a sign of civic wealth, and your community was doing well to have one.”
But the clock tower wasn’t always part of the city’s backdrop.
“The clock mechanism actually was originally on top of Cleveland Heights City Hall that was built in 1923,” Jungeberg said. “They demolished that City Hall in '86, and what happened was it just kind of was sitting there. So, we were able to repurpose the whole clock mechanism on top of the tower when that was built in 1992."
The construction of the clock tower was a project championed by Strongsville Mayor Walter F. Ehrnfelt Jr.
The Strongsville City Club was another cheerleader for the project and helped raise funds to build it.
Perched on top of it is a special weather vane.
“It’s fun to look up there and see a Mustang running on top of that,” Jungeberg said.
There’s even more than meets the eye.
“There's a ton of telecommunications equipment for the city that transmits out of its clock tower, so it has kind of a cool little dual purpose there,” Jungeberg said.
Throughout the year, the clock tower is lit up for special occasions.
“We've done up lights obviously for the 250th anniversary (America’s birthday). Every Fourth of July it goes red, white, and blue. There'll be times when it's green and white. They'll light it for special causes,” Jungeberg said.
Damon Maloney is a Cuyahoga County and We Follow Through anchor at News 5 Cleveland. Follow him on X
