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.
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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