Witching Hour - Strange History: Tonight, the witching hour strikes twice
At 2 AM, Ontario clocks go back to 1 AM. Across the river, Detroit once fought over the time. A 1905 vote put it on Central time. In May 1915, it moved to Eastern.
Topics: Witching Hour
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Witching Hour is our nightly local history and folklore feature. Ghost stories and legends are retold as stories people tell, not reported as fact. Sources are listed below the story.
Tonight's Witching Hour is the last of the season, and it comes with a small gift: the hour itself happens twice.
The odd part
Ontario's Time Act says daylight saving time runs until 2 a.m. daylight time on the first Sunday in November. That is tonight. At 2 a.m., clocks in Windsor-Essex go back to 1 a.m., and standard time returns.
So if you are still awake, you get the witching hour twice.
The Act also carries a 2020 amendment that would keep Ontario on one time all year. It is marked as not in force, so the clocks still change.
The history
Across the river, Detroit once spent years arguing over what time it was.
The IANA time zone database, the record that phones and computers use to set their clocks, shows Detroit keeping its own local sun time until the end of 1904, then switching to Central time on January 1, 1905. The database's own notes, quoting a history of timekeeping, say that change came by a city vote, and the Mackinac Center and a Michigan State University history page say the same.
Ten years later, on May 15, 1915, the database shows Detroit moving from Central to Eastern time. Detroit has been on Eastern time ever since.
The legend
The story is told that in 1900, Detroit's council first ordered clocks set back 28 minutes to Central time. Half the city obeyed and half refused, and the order was dropped. A mocking offer to put a sundial in front of City Hall was, as the tale goes, sent to the Committee on Sewers.
That story comes from a time history book quoted in the time zone database's own notes, and the Mackinac Center tells it the same way. Treat it as a well loved tale rather than a record we have checked against council minutes.
Thanks for staying up with us this October.
