Daniel BeardвЂ™s sketches of an angel at the end of A Connecticut Yankee in King ArthurвЂ™s Court are based on the Elgin National Watch CompanyвЂ™s logo.NBA Hall of Famer Elgin Baylor was named after the ElginВ National Watch Company.Robert Johnson, pre-eminent Delta bluesman, sang вЂњSheвЂ™sВ got Elgin movements from her head down to her toesвЂќ in his 1936 recordingВ of вЂњWalkinвЂ™ BluesвЂќ.The legendary Elgin watch has become woven into the fabricВ of America: Over the course of a century, the dream factory just north of Chicago had produced half of all jeweled pocket and wristwatches manufactured in the United States. By 1964, after a Mid-Century decade that saw the rise of the elite вЂњLord and Lady ElginвЂќ series, the original Elgin factory closed. While their altruism was vital to the war effort, ElginвЂ™s patriotism ironically opened an opportunity for the Swiss. Later, their accurate вЂњwristletвЂќ watches proved to be vital to the WWI war effort, helping to fuel a craze back in the states for something called вЂњThe Wrist Watch.вЂќ By the opulent Jazz Age, if you werenвЂ™t displaying the exuberant symmetry of an Elgin wrist watch or carrying a svelte, distinctive Elgin pocket watch, then who were you? Elgin had helped define the American pocket watch as unsurpassed in вЂњRailroad Accuracy.вЂќ By 1930, the post Civil War dream factory imagined by a handful of American entrepreneurs had produced 32 million вЂњtime machines.вЂќДuring World War II, all civilian manufacturing was haltedВ and the company moved into the defense industry, manufacturing militaryВ watches, chronometers, fuses for artillery shells, altimeters and otherВ aircraft instruments and sapphire bearings used for aiming cannons. Elgin engineers built their own Observatory to maintain scientifically precise times in their watches. Д«y 1910, word of ElginвЂ™s obsession with precision had spread around the world. Raymond.вЂќ The watch was exquisite: Elgin National Watch Company was born. After a year of designing and building the lathes and machines to achieve seemingly impossible levels of precision, a team of watchmakers and mechanical engineers produced their first pocket watch movement, named for mayor вЂњB.W.

Raymond, purchased an abandoned farm 30 miles north of Chicago and built a watch factory there.

HarperвЂ™s magazine summed their sentiment perfectly: вЂњIt was the genuine, audacious, self-reliant Western spirit.вЂќ By August of that year this consortium, including then-Chicago mayor Benjamin W. In the spring of 1864 half a dozen ambitious Chicago businessmenВ decided that if Massachusetts could build a factory that built watches вЂ“ Illinois could, too.

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