How and when did the four time zones (PT, MT, CT and ET) in US come to observance?
Until late in the nineteenth century, things were in a sorry state of confusion among American railroads: no one agreed on what time it was. Finally on November 18, 1883 the US railroads, in desperation, put the country on a standard time, of course four different standard time zones. And the man behind this is Charles Ferdinand Dowd. Prior to the adoption of standard time, many communities based their time on the position of the sun over city hall. The result was no end of chaos. Railroad timetables, lacking a nationally synchronized master time system, gave arrival and departure times in terms of the time of each city. A traveler going from say Maine to California had to adjust his watch twenty times to match local variations in timekeeping. Leave that, even a traveler coming in to the city of Buffalo from say Portland (Maine) might find the New York Central clock indicating noon, the Lake Shore clock pointing to 11:25 am, the Buffalo city clock showing 11:40 and his own watch indica
