The Dubuque Town Clock is one of the stranger monumental scale structures I've seen in a town.
The cupola and clock (1873) are much older than the pre-cast column (1971) that supports it, replacing the building that the cupola once adorned.
When I post more than one or two photo posts per day, as I've been inclined to do lately, I'll just lj-cut all the photos so you're not forced to deal with lots of non-text content all at once. If they sound interesting though, I hope you'll click through and maybe even tell me what you think!)
( Pictures behind the cut. )This is the second town clock. The first one is an example of the way constructions techniques were something of a matter of trial and error once upon a time. That first clock was too heavy for the building it was built on and the whole thing collapsed, destroying a store and killing a few people.