Milledgeville — The skyline in Milledgeville changed Wednesday as the clock tower on top of the newer Baldwin County courthouse was removed.
The clock tower had extensive water leakage that was damaging the beams inside and the roof. County manager Carlos Tobar went up the tower to see why the clock had stopped.
"Well, when I went into the tower to find out why it wasn’t working, I was soaked by all the water seeping through the tower," Tobar said. "If you look at the seams on these two sections, you can see where the water infiltrated."
The tower cost $159,700 to remove, according to a contract bid form obtained by 13WMAZ. The bid also includes maintenance to the outside of the building, painting, and repairing the roof where the tower sat. All the repairs cost $359,510 according to Tobar. The county commissioners preferred this option to the alternative repair and replace method.
"The architect said it would cost a quarter of a million dollars to bring it down, reclad it and bring it back up," Tobar said. "He said it was designed this way and we would be facing this bill every 15 years, and so the commissioners decided that they didn’t want future taxpayers to pay this bill."
Phillip Lord was passing by as the clock tower came down and said he was sad to see it go.
"It was really great over the years watching Milledgeville come up. They really got to beautifying things," Lord said. "[The tower] was pretty beautiful, too, and then to take it down. I know they said $250,000, a quarter of a million dollars, and I think the concept is that it could be spent in better ways. You just have to hope that the better ways have to deal with beautifying our community, too."
Edwin Atkins, a local historian and manager of the Georgia State Farm Prison Facebook page, had at least one idea for the tower.
"The pedestal could be at the prison," Atkins said. "We could have the names of the 600 people who are buried in the cemetery behind the prison, they could be on these panels and we could have the cornerstone. We could have the dates. We could have the GA history bronze sign on it and that would be a very inexpensive way to have a very nice memorial at the site of the prison."
The clock tower was originally built in 1997 with the courthouse and cost $150,000 to add, according to archives of the Union Recorder at Georgia College and State University. It is expected to be placed in storage until commissioners decide another plan for it.