POULTNEY, Vt. -
It was a moment Green Mountain College Facilities Director Glen LaPlante will never forget.
"And it was just a little crack in the paint," he said. "So, I was pretty blown away."
A little crack in some white paint of an old tower at Green Mountain College was all it took for LaPlante to know he stumbled upon something big.
"So, I began to chip away at it and I saw minute marks," he said.
LaPlante uncovered a treasure hidden in plain sight for almost 50 years: A 1920s model clock literally frozen in time.
"I happened to be standing right here when he was scraping the paint off," said Kevin Coburn of Green Mountain College. "And as fate would have it, it happened to be around 11 o'clock in the morning which is what the clock was reading when he finally scraped the paint away."
Now, fully restored to its old glory, hand painted numbers and all, Wednesday the Telechron model was reinstalled. This time, for all the town to see.
"I really like the nostalgia piece," LaPlante said. "I can only imagine at one point in time a bustling town with this beautifully lit clock and a tower that at that time was in really great shape."
Neil Adams met his wife at Green Mountain College under that clock tower almost 50 years ago. Two dates later, he proposed.
"I said I love you will you marry me? I figured when you've caught the train, you stop running," he said. "And 48 years later we're still going strong."
But neither they, nor anyone in town can remember exactly when the clock was painted over.
"It sort of became the clock that time forgot," Coburn said.
But now, each night, up will rise the neon glow of the clock for a second chance on an old chapter in Green Mountain History.
The clock's face was fully restored to its art deco-style, but the internal mechanics got some modern upgrades. That work cost the college just under $4,000.
