North American time
zones were established 132 years ago by the big American and Canadian railroad
companies that decided they could no longer keep track of the different local
times observed in every town on their transcontinental routes.
The four time zones
we have today—Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific—were created on November 18,
1883,with roughly their current boundaries by arbitrary action of the railroads.
Almost immediately there was widespread adoption of the new time conventions.
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| Dotted lines are 1883 time zone boundaries |
Previously, almost
every town in America followed the ancient custom of establishing 12:00 pm at
the time that the sun was at its highest in the sky. The railroads had the
incredibly confusing task of publishing train schedules that tried to keep
track of every locally designated arrival and departure time on every route.
In the early stages
of railroad travel the problem wasn’t really acute, because trains moved
relatively slowly. As speeds increased, the number of towns on a typical
day-trip route increased, thus greatly complicating the preparation and
publication of train schedules, and frustrating the highly publicized efforts
of railroads to “run on time.” Moreover, a traveler faced the unprecedented
challenge of covering enough distance in a short time to make it obligatory to
adjust his timepiece repeatedly.
The four time zones
were universally recognized but they weren’t officially endorsed by the federal
government until 1918, when Congress put the administration of time zones under
the control of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Copyright ©
Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.
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