The Bily Clock Museum

In northeast Iowa, there is a place where clocks, farmers and woodcarving combine. The result is the Bily Clock Museum. I’ve been to see it once about a year and a half ago, and when my brother Andy showed up to spend Easter with me, I thought it was high time to go see it again.

The first thing to know about the Bily Clock Museum is that it is located in Spillville, Iowa. I firmly believe this is one of the greatest names for a town ever imagined. Keep your Truth or Consequences, which is pretty good, and your Fairviews, the most generic name for a town ever and coincidentally the most popular town name in the United States. But Spillville just sounds as though it was the result of a tanker truck accident, where a bunch of volunteers gathered to clean up a toxic waste spill and then when they were done said, “Screw it, we’re staying here.” The real reason, unfortunately, is that the town was founded by a guy with the last name of Spiel. Spiel’s Village=Spielville=Spillville.

You can’t exactly get to Spillville from Cresco, at least not directly. Yes, you take Highway 9, which runs through my experiences in northeast Iowa as surely as supermodels run through Tiger Wood’s golfing experiences. You go east until you’re halfway between Cresco and Decorah, in a little town called Ridgeway, and this is where things get weird. You have to turn down a sideroad, one that seems to be maintained with less frequency than a Brigadoon appearance, and the sign that directs you clearly says “Spillville, 8 (miles).” After you go down the expressway you come to a fork in the road with a sign that points you in the direction of Spillville. It also says, “Spillville, 9 (miles).” I’m not entirely sure how you can move physically closer to a point on a map and have it be further away. I personally think some quantum physicists should study this, as it could be invaluable in figuring out the true nature of the universe. I would also like to suggest, just to cover my bases, that the northeast Iowa road commission take a look at what their sign painters are doing.  I think it’s heroin.

The first thing you notice about Spillville is that it is a tiny town. It has a population of around 300. Normally a town with 300 people in it almost qualifies as a suburb or a bedroom community. But Spillville soldiers on, probably because there’s no other town for about nine (ten) miles. It’s impressive to see such a small town with a car dealership, even if there are only two cars in the dealer lot, both used. Spillville also boasts a gas station and mini mart, a nice restaurant, a bed and breakfast, and a bar called the Farr Side that easily had more customers in front of it than the other businesses combined.

Another point of interest is that Spillville actually has a town square, a stone gazebo right dead in the middle of main street that you have to drive around. You can look at it and think, just for a moment, that men in top hats and women wearing bonnets will be walking out to the gazebo, along with a small marching band playing the Spirit of ’76. Then you see the car dealership and get taken back to the twenty-first century.

The Bily Clock Museum is in a brownstone building that contrasts with the rest of Spillville like a red dress in a black and white film. It’s almost a perfect rectangle from the front and side, with no bits sticking out. It was built without decoration or pretension, simply meant to provide shelter. Even so, it stands with a quiet kind of majesty, something that would puzzle anyone who happened to zip through the town. Of course, anyone who did zip through town would be taking the highway four miles over. Most people who come to Spillville know what the building is.

Finally, there are the clocks themselves. Now, when I say “clocks,” please do not think of anything that can be hung on a wall. These are more like sculptures, with intricately carved panels, moving parts that activate when the hour is struck, and in one notable case the entire clock is carved from wood, including the clock gears.  In most of these sculptures/clocks the themes are similar—religion and science. One clock has the twelve apostles parade through a door, displaying themselves on a track for you before going back into the machinery.  Another showcases their version of the influential figures of the age, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Edison. Yet another has fifty-seven panels showing the history of America and the progress of the pioneers. There are some smaller pieces, but by and large they are the exception to the rule.

It is impossible to look at these clocks and not be awestruck. The Bily brothers were farmers, after all, who only did woodcutting as a hobby in the winter months when the lack of crops to tend left gaping holes of time to fill. They also only had a fifth-grade education, but they were avid readers. They put together a library that would shame most people who consider themselves academics, and in other circumstances it’s not hard to see them being university scholars. Also, they only traveled about thirty-five miles from their farm in Spillville. Most of the time, they were content to be farmers, and when they had some spare time they’d design and carve these clocks. For fun. Not for fame, and not for money—Henry Ford wanted to buy one of the Bilys’ clocks, and they turned him down, even when he offered them one million dollars. This is usually the part in the story where people say, “and they spent the rest of their lives in the loony bin, the end.”

 I take away a different moral from the story, though. If you are a farmer in the middle of nowhere, and despite your impressive book collection have never been more than thirty-five miles from home, you might be perfectly content with where you are and what you have. You might also have some project that you’re proud of. If you have all those things, then let me ask you, what good will a million dollars do you? You’ve already got everything you need, or want. It’s a peace of mind very few people have, or even understand. I could evangelize here, say that it’s because we have commercials telling us what we need next or that it’s because celebrities constantly flaunt their wealth and success, but I don’t think that’s the case. It’s more having peace of mind, being happy and content, is worth more than being able to buy something. It’s a state I think everyone is aiming for, and it may say something about how few people ever manage to achieve it.

It’s also worth noting there’s a lot you can do if you have a hobby you like and some free time to practice it.