Why does Texas have two time zones? A look at the history of time in the Lone Star State

Texas has been arguing about the time since before time began in the United States, to the point that it uses two separate time zones. How did time become such a literally-splitting issue in the Lone Star State, and why?

AMARILLO, Texas (KAMR/KCIT) - When Texas changes its clocks twice per year to align with daylight saving time, communities and lawmakers alike renew the ongoing debate on whether or not to continue the practice. However, the phenomenon isn't a new one; in Texas, arguing about the time is a tradition literally older than time itself.

In fact, the Lone Star State has never been in agreement on the time of day, to the point that it uses two separate time zones. Even then, Texans disagreed with both themselves and the federal government over where to draw the line for the split.

How did Texas end up with two different time zones, and what about the state makes time such an issue?

The answer can be found in the shape of the Texas economy as well as the shape of Texas itself.

Time before time

Before standardized time in the US, communities were responsible for setting the time of day locally, most often by using the moment when the sun was the highest in the sky - or "high noon" - as a point of reference. Rural residents used sundials to approximate the time, and townships often sounded bells to mark the hour.

While this system worked all right in an astrological sense, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics noted that this resulted in more than 144 local times in the US. This didn't make much of a difference when traveling to neighboring communities took days, but the creation of the railroad system and industrialized faster travel turned timekeeping into a critical issue.

To coordinate train schedules to minimize missed connections and collisions, major railroad companies in the US began operating on a system of four time zones in 1883, splitting the country into Pacific, Mountain, Central and Eastern time and turning back the clock by one hour with each westward move.

In its original configuration, the entire state of Texas as well as part of southeastern New Mexico were included in the Central time zone, with some surrounding counties (such as Cimarron County, Okla. and Union County, N.M.) split by the boundary. Those boundaries remained mostly consistent until the 20th century when the federal government gave its organization in charge of railroad regulations, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the power to address time coordination concerns.

Time zones in Texas

In accordance with the passage of the Standard Time Act of 1918, the ICC was established as the regulator of time zones in the United States instead of what had been a mixture of railroad company decisions and local laws. The ICC announced its first official time zone boundaries to take effect on Jan. 1, 1919, using more densely populated towns and meridian measurements to mark transitions between the time zones.

However, while those new boundaries mostly unified the lines that were already in use, they moved slightly westward and split the Lone Star State in two. As explained in a 1918 report from The Lubbock Avalanche, the time zone border separating Mountain and Central time ran mostly south along the 100th meridian except for winding around specific towns like Sweetwater, Big Spring and San Angelo. This meant that West Texas, for the first time since before the popularization of railway time, was officially an hour ahead of the rest of the state.

Not only was the new split a change for the railroad companies but also the broader economy of the state and its relationships with its neighbors. Similar to how Texas technically occupies multiple 'regions' of the US, its geographic position made its relationship to the time zone boundary foggy: Was it better to keep the time zone boundary line consistent, or to keep as much of Texas in one zone as possible?

Many area residents conformed to the change with a "may as well," sort of attitude, as seen in The Snyder Signal in January 1919, which wrote: "The rail road people set their time back an hour last week to conform to mountain time and the Western Union has set back this week. Now we may as well all do it even if we do have to wait for dinner till one o'clock."

However, other communities and agencies voiced their opposition to the change and pushed for the Texas Panhandle to return to the Central time zone.

By November 1919, as reported in The Canadian Record, the Panhandle-Plains Chamber of Commerce announced that it had asked for a hearing with the ICC to make its case for leaving the Mountain time zone.

"Of course," said the chamber's secretary at the time, F.R. Jamison, "We do not know what will be the ultimate outcome of this hearing but we are quietly disposed to and do believe that the Interstate Commerce Commission will assure us the time we want. Numerous applications have come to this office expressive of a very great desire to have this portion of the State returned to central time."

Jamison was proven correct less than a year and a half later when the Panhandle-Plains Chamber of Commerce got its way. In March 1921, The Canadian Record reported that the US Congress had adjusted the time zones once again and prompted new timetables for the country and its railroads, shifting the Texas Panhandle back to the Central time zone after only two years.

According to the update to the Standard Time Act, the Panhandle-Plains region of Texas and Oklahoma was shifted to the Central time zone. Instead, major railroad companies were advised to change their clocks to Mountain time when passing through El Paso or certain communities in New Mexico, including Tucumcari, Sixela, and Clovis.

While the Texas Panhandle celebrated the shift back to Central time, El Paso and Hudspeth counties took their turn to protest, insisting that their communities intended to remain in Mountain time. As noted by the El Paso Times, the region ignored the updated Standard Time Act and continued to operate on Mountain time unofficially up through the 1960s.

After the Uniform Time Act of 1966 was adopted in the US, which compelled every part of the country to conform to both standard and daylight saving time zones, the City of El Paso joined with the county and chamber of commerce to adopt a joint resolution to keep the area on Mountain time. A petition to the US Secretary of Transportation requesting that the area be allowed to stay on Mountain time listed a host of reasons, including:

• The distance from El Paso to the meridian line centers of the Central time zone (the 90th meridian west) is much larger than its distance from the base of the Mountain time zone (the 105th meridian west);
• El Paso has been considered within the Mountain time zone since standard time was first established;
• Changing to the use of Central Standard Time would require thousands of El Paso residents to work in one-time zone and live in another;
• Using Central Daylight Time would require El Paso to operate under Eastern Standard Time for more than half the year; and
• Using Central Standard Time would cause serious inconvenience and loss for business and trade in the region.

Those reasons mirrored a few of the ones that caused the Panhandle-Plains to want to stay in Central Time previously; geographic relationships to neighboring large cities, both in and out of the state, and economic impact.

After years of petitions and postponements, in 1970 the Uniform Time Act was amended to allow for El Paso and Hudspeth counties to remain in Mountain time, officially recognizing Texas as a two-time zone state.

While that could change if a community's highest political authority requested a time zone shift from Congress, according to federal guidelines, a community's desire for it and the total impact on commerce would be the deciding factors. While some still occasionally bring up the idea of containing the entire state in one-time zone again, the general consensus appears to be that it is easier for the people of El Paso to have their clocks match its neighbors of Las Cruces, N.M. and Ciudad Juárez, and for clocks in Amarillo to match Oklahoma City and Dallas.

Altogether, the time zones of Texas are yet another example of how its unique shape and economic history have impacted every aspect of the daily lives of its people. Albeit with the matter of time zones mostly settled, the state has more time to spare than ever to continue its debates on daylight savings.