Clock Tower (Iquique)

Its construction was approved by the mayor Benigno Posada and the Government of the City Council on 14 December 1877, to replace the clock of the church, which had been destroyed by fire in 1873.

The committee appointed to plan the project estimated that it would take 7000 soles to purchase the clock, of which the sale was eventually agreed with the jeweler Federico Franzt.

The four-faced clock, marking the quarter-hour with a smaller bell, and the hour with a larger, was shipped from England on December 10, 1878, on board the steamer Ibis.

As a result, the square was expanded into the areas to the south and west destroyed by the fire, and renamed Plaza Arturo Prat.

The tower would remain off-centre, until, in 1889, it was moved to its current position by a company of the Pisagua battalion, by the order of mayor Ramon Yabar.