The Corner Where Lenoir's Clock Stood Is Getting Its Foundation. Here's What Goes Up Next

In the early 2000s, Lenoir's downtown clock had stopped. Curtis Moore helped city staff fit new timers on each of its four faces and got it running again, as the News-Topic recounted when the tower came down. The repair kept the clock going for about two more decades. In November 2022, the brick tower that held the clock was found unsafe and demolished. Since then, the corner of Main Street and West Avenue outside City Hall has had no clock at all.

This fall, work at that corner moves forward again. In September, Lenoir City Council approved a contractor to build the foundation for the clock's new home. That home is a sculpture with room for hundreds of cast-iron tiles made by the public, and its steel is already fabricated.

A 1920s clock from a Minneapolis maker

The clock has been in downtown Lenoir since the early 1920s. O.B. McClintock Co. of Minneapolis made it, and it first hung on the corner of the Bank of Lenoir, next to the current City Hall. Each of its four sides has a white, round dial set inside green stained glass that makes the face square. It was built to glow white and green at night from a light inside. According to Downtown Lenoir, the numbers on the dial use a lettering style found on O.B. McClintock clocks.

When the bank building was torn down, the city took ownership of the clock and built a tower for it on the square. That tower is the one that failed. Parts of its outer wall were cracking and coming loose from the brick underneath, and the brick itself was getting weaker. Contractors told the city there were too many unknowns to give a reliable repair estimate. Public Works staff took off the four faces on a Tuesday, brought in a crane to lift out the frame, and stored the frame, faces and mechanics somewhere secure.

Why the replacement is a sculpture

Then-Main Street Director Kaylynn Horn described what the city wanted in an interview with the News-Topic when the old tower came down:

"We'd like something that could speak to our love for outdoor sculpture, and possibly incorporate the city of Lenoir brand. We want something out of the ordinary, something interesting, something that will showcase the creativity of our community and engage the residents."

That goal led to the Western North Carolina Sculpture Center, which is just up the road from downtown. Horn met with the center's executive director, Joe Bigley, to talk through the clock, public art and the town. Bigley then designed a piece called "Time Well Spent."

The design is a three-column sculpture 25 feet tall. It is mostly weathering steel, with some stained glass and lighting, and the historic clock sits at the top. It will fit in with the more than 80 publicly displayed sculptures in Lenoir and Caldwell County. If you know the rotating pedestals on Main Street, this will be the first piece in that collection to also tell the time. We wrote about how those pedestals change from year to year in our look at Lenoir's sculpture calendar.

The part residents made by hand

What makes this piece different from a rebuilt tower is the tiles. "Time Well Spent" has spaces for 224 cast-iron tiles, all made by members of the public. "Hundreds of people can create cast iron tiles that will be a permanent part of this sculpture and enjoyed for decades," Bigley told Downtown Lenoir.

Downtown Lenoir laid out how it would work:

• Two shapes, two places. Upper tiles are diamonds and octagons and go on the top section. Lower tiles are square and go on the legs.
• Price. Downtown Lenoir listed both sizes at $75 each.
• Workshop required. Everyone who bought a tile carved their own scratch mold at a Saturday workshop at Mulberry Recreation Center. Sessions ran up to three hours on Aug. 5, 12, 19 and 26 and Sept. 2, 16 and 23, 2023.
• Casting. Bigley and the sculpture center's staff planned to pour the iron at the Wood, Fire, Smoke Festival downtown, where anyone could watch.

Lenoir has seen this kind of pour before. Sculpture center staff poured molten iron into scratch molds at the Wood, Fire, Smoke Festival on Oct. 8, 2022. The project is paid for by a $50,000 private donation to the sculpture center. Bigley also set out to raise money to cover about 30 tiles for local young people who might not otherwise have been able to take part.

Mayor Joe Gibbons tied the project to the downtown slogan, "Together We Create," and said he hoped the new sculpture "will stand for another 100 years in Downtown Lenoir."

Why the date kept moving

The opening date has moved several times since the old tower came down.

The News-Topic's report on the September council vote lays out the recent sequence. The structural plans were finalized in February 2025. After that, the sculpture center fabricated the piece and finished by summer 2026. So the sculpture is built, and what remains is the foundation under it.

What the foundation contract covers

The foundation design was done in July, and the city asked for informal bids on Aug. 11. Only one bid came in by the Aug. 28 deadline, so the city rejected it and opened bidding again. Two bids came in the second time, but only G&M Structures LLC turned in a complete bid packet. Mattern & Craig Engineers recommended G&M, and on Sept. 15 the council voted unanimously to award it the contract for $91,837.

The contract covers:

1. Taking out the existing concrete at the corner
2. Installing precast or cast-in-place concrete foundation structures
3. Clearing the site and doing some minor grading
4. Moving two pull boxes
5. Forming and pouring new concrete sidewalks

G&M is supposed to finish most of the foundation within 60 days of the notice to proceed, and all of it within 75 days. The News-Topic worked out that this puts completion near the end of November or the first week of December. If you walk Main Street during the holidays, you may see new sidewalk at West Avenue before you see anything taller. The sculpture itself is set to go up in late spring or early summer 2027.

The signs already pointing toward it

While the clock was in storage, the city finished a related project. Lenoir's vehicular wayfinding signs were designed with Destination By Design to match the city brand. Each one carries the city logo at the top and the "Create With Us" tagline on the pole. The city recruited local artists, many of them students, to design decorative pieces for the tops of the signs so each one looks different. "My favorite component is the public art framing the signs," Planning Director Hannah Williams told Go Foothills in December 2025. She also said the main goal was to alert travelers to Lenoir's attractions and route them off 321 and into town.

Under state NCDOT and federal MUTCD standards, the signs can only point to cultural, historic, art and sports destinations and places like visitor centers. Private businesses can't appear on them. The City of Lenoir reported in May 2026 that 52 of 53 signs were up, with the last one waiting on the new Hospital Avenue sidewalk. At the Oct. 20 council meeting, the project was closed out as finished in August 2026. According to a summary of that meeting, it cost $627,229.62, which is $2,270.38 under the $629,500 budget. An American Rescue Plan Act grant, an Appalachian Regional Commission grant and the Lenoir Tourism Development Authority paid for it.

Downtown Lenoir's latest impact report lists a third piece of the same plan. The Smith Crossroads illuminated gateway sign and four other gateway signs are scheduled for fall 2026. An earlier concept for the Smith Crossroads gateway showed a board-formed concrete wall with halo backlighting and translucent panels lit from inside. Together with the clock, these projects put the "Create With Us" brand and local art on Lenoir's signs, its entrances and its town clock.

Where to see Bigley's circle at work before 2027

You don't have to wait for next summer to see what the sculpture center can do. Its free sculpture park, with almost 80 pieces, is open every day from dawn to dusk on the Historic Patterson School Campus at 4612 Patterson School Dr. in Lenoir. The center that runs it also fabricated "Time Well Spent." For an evening downtown, see our guide to the Harper Avenue evening loop, and our Lenoir community page covers more of the town.

Baker Realty has worked in Lenoir since 1971 and has watched downtown change around this corner for decades. If you own a home near downtown and wonder how projects like this one fit into the area's value, our agents are glad to talk it through. A home valuation is a good place to start.