Below is the 1982 Pensacola newspaper article giving some interesting history on the tower clock.

Thanks to Carlos for helping with the document.
I have some newspaper pics I will upload later today.

The bell tolls around the clock

By DOT BROWN
Journal Staff Writer
Time moves slowly in Pensacola.
It took 45 years to decide what to do with the old Escambia County Courthouse clock.
But at long last the Howard tower clock and its 1,500 pound McShane bell stands on a corner at Palafox Place and Government Street telling the hour to passersby.
At the 11:40 a.m. Friday dedication ceremony, Commissioner Kenneth Kelson, who vowed almost a year ago not to shave until the clock was installed on the Escambia County Courthouse lawn, will be shorn of his hirsute badge of determination.
The old clock that tolled the hours from 1890 until 1937 in the tower of the old seat of government that formerly stood at the site of the Federal Building (better known as the old downtown post office) was forgotten, almost lost, forgotten, given away by a former city manager, forgotten and, at various times, ignored.
Through the years, city and county officials have talked about installing the clock in the Municipal Auditorium, the Pensacola Library, the Judicial Center, Ferdinand Plaza and the tower of Old Christ Church, home of the Pensacola Historical Museum on Seville Square.
And. even before the clock was saved by a congressional act in 1938, it stirred up more than controversy.
Actually, back in 1890, some people probably didn't cotton to the idea of a clock being bought with money that, in part, came from a lottery.
Seems back in the late 1860s, shortly after the Civil War, the Louisiana State Lottery was doing brisk business. The lottery had a charter for 25 years and paid $40,000 annually into the state treasury- for the support of the Charity Hospital of New Orleans. The lottery kingpins added to their prestige by trotting out two Confederate generals, Early and Beauregard, to be present at the drawings
In the late 1880s, probably just before the charter expired in 1888, the company pulled out all the stops in an effort to renew its charter even to the tune of offering to pay an annual $1.25 million, a staggering sum in those days, for the privilege of doing business.
But the scheme didn't work and the rechartering act was vetoed by the governor, who had campaigned and been elected on an anti-lottery ticket.
About this time, the ship "Stadacoma" sailed into Pensacola under the command of Capt. William Folker, a Nova Scotian.
Folker was doing some business in the office of Thomas C. Watson, then located on the southwest corner of Palafox and lntendencia streets, when someone persuaded him to pay $1 for the last lottery ticket in the place.
Came the drawing, and the good captain won $15,000, 'or one-fifth of the $75,000 grand prize.
Being a sensible man, the captain turned over his ship to the first mate and retired. It was he who thought the town ought to have a clock in the courthouse tower. Having conceived the idea, he made a substantial cash donation. Other civic-minded citizens pitched in, and soon the town had the $1,300 to buy the clock.
C. M. Wilson, who was chairman of the county commission, supervised the fund drive and on April 12, 1890, the Daily News reported, "The big bell of the courthouse has been safely landed in the tower."
The names of the commissioners of that time and also the name, W. F. Williams, the jeweler through whom the clock was ordered, are engraved on the bell.
At times, the bell served as a fire alarm.
By 1925, the clock needed repair. Each of its four faces told a different time, wrote Bessie Linderstruth in the Pensacola Journal. Miss Lindenstruth's father, Peter Linderstruth, was a Pensacola watchmaker who had lovingly tended the clock until he became too old to climb the stair s to the tower.
T. T. Wentworth got elected to the county commission by promising to get the courthouse clock repaired.
Then, in 1937, the old courthouse was razed. The Pensacola Historical Society kicked up a fuss, and then Sen. Claude Pepper, Rep. Millard Caldwell and Sen. C.O. Andrews took the cause to Washington.
Congress passed an act, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt that gave the clock to the Pensacola Historical Society.
Several times, officials talked about "putting the clock somewhere." Then, in 1964, former city manager Homer Reed gave the clock to a local businessman
Pensacola Journal editorial pages editor Paul Jasper was covering City Hall in 1965 and, looking for something to report, started wondering what had happened to the old clock.
He tracked it down and wrote a column about it. Some people got fighting mad and demanded that the clock be returned. It was, and has, for the last few years, been stored in the Transportation Museum.
Now, it's going to tick again, telling the hours to passersby thanks to people like the members of the White Sands Chapter 96, National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, who volunteered to restore it, and contractor Raymond Dyson, architect Stewart Morrison, master clock craftsman James Gramlich, Jack Bell, James Bradley, Pat Donnelly, E. W. Hopkins, Jerry Mathes, Charles Merritt, Ron Morgan, Tom Patete, Jean Pitts, the Rosenbaum family, Read Satterwhite, Angelini Tile and Florida Electric Co., who all contributed to the project.
And there's Commissioner Kelson who tolerated a beard for a full year to fulfill a vow that the clock would be installed in a public place.