Note: The following is one of a series of columns looking at places and events of interest in Bulloch County history.

Everyone knows how important it is to be “on time.” Before time was standardized, each town’s time was truly its own. From the very beginning of Bulloch County’s settlement, all activities were ruled by the rising and setting of the sun.

Therefore, noon (referred to as “sun” or “mean” time) in every town was determined when the sun was directly overhead of, usually, the city hall. In Bulloch County, noon came when the sun was directly overhead of the Bulloch County Courthouse.

As early as 1883, America’s railroads had devised a standardized time system, and railroad superintendents and engineers established the time-zone boundaries at major railroad division headquarters.

Savannah, a major railroad junction, therefore, was made the dividing line between the new Eastern and Central Standard time zones. Trains leaving Savannah going north and east used Eastern time, while trains going west or south left on Central time.

That meant that the Central of Georgia Railroad and the Seaboard Air Line Railway trains were leaving Savannah on the new Central time, one hour later, than the trains of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, which headed for points north according to the new Eastern time.

So, on Sept. 27, 1905, Statesboro’s newspapers announced that the Bulloch County Board of Commissioners had decided to bring their county, which was served by many railroads, into line with the new Central time zone.

What did this mean? Well, for starters, county commissioners decreed that beginning on Oct. 15, 1905, everyone had to adjust their watches and clocks back some 36 minutes, the difference between Statesboro’s local noon-time and that witnessed in Savannah.

There was some dissension. Some local preachers thought that this act of man was defying God’s hand. Some people just didn’t like the idea of change. Nevertheless, the courthouse clock was changed to reflect the new time as ordered.

On March 18, 1918, the railroad standard time system was finally adopted by the federal government when the Standard Time Act was approved by Congress. This act divided the U.S. into five time zones of 15 minutes of latitude: the East, Central, Mountain, Pacific and Alaska time zones.

The Eastern/Central time zone boundaries were moved two more times, first to western Georgia, and then to the Alabama/Georgia border. As such, the clocks across Bulloch County had to be set back one hour in 1918, in order to now reflect the Eastern time into which the region fell.

Roger Allen is a local lover of history. Allen provides a brief look each week at the area's past. E-mail Roger at rwasr1953@gmail.com.