The Town Clock Tower is shrouded in folklore, and although recorded in shire history, there is some ambiguity as to the actual purchase of the clock.
Folklore has it that there was a clock purchased and to be delivered from Britain on the Royal Mail Steamer SS Orizaba in 1905.
The SS Orizaba sank off the coast of Rottnest Island before the clock could be delivered.
Subsequently, no record could be located in any Shire or government accounts of a clock being ordered or purchased from England, or that one was to be delivered by the Orizaba.
It took 99 years for the tower above the Shire Office to finally see a clock installed at the start of the new Millenium (2000).
