W242AA

[Garrett Wollman]

<<On Wed, 21 Apr 2010 21:53:44 -0700 (PDT), Blaine Thompson <irw@well.com> said:

> On Thu, 22 Apr 2010, Garrett Wollman wrote:
>> not to mention the usual confusion in Indiana.

> 80 Indiana counties are "always Eastern."

> 12 Indiana counties are "always Central."

Except, of course, that it was not always thus, and broadcasters from
Idaho or California might be forgiven, just this once, for not
carefully watching the Department of Transportation section of the
Federal Register for notice that yet another county has decided that
it doesn't like its current time zone and wants to switch.  (Of
course, all of Indiana ought to be on Central Time, for reasons of
simple geography, and this battle should have been fought out over
Ohio.)

The editors of the time zone database note:

# From Paul Eggert (2007-08-17):
# Since 1970, most of Indiana has been like America/Indiana/Indianapolis,
# with the following exceptions:
#
# - Gibson, Jasper, Lake, LaPorte, Newton, Porter, Posey, Spencer,
#   Vandenburgh, and Warrick counties have been like America/Chicago.
#
# - Dearborn and Ohio counties have been like America/New_York.
#
# - Clark, Floyd, and Harrison counties have been like
#   America/Kentucky/Louisville.
#
# - Crawford, Daviess, Dubois, Knox, Martin, Perry, Pike, Pulaski, Starke,
#   and Switzerland counties have their own time zone histories as noted below.
#
# Shanks partitioned Indiana into 345 regions, each with its own time history,
# and wrote ``Even newspaper reports present contradictory information.''
# Those Hoosiers!  Such a flighty and changeable people!
# Fortunately, most of the complexity occurred before our cutoff date of 1970.

They then go on to note:

# Eastern Crawford County, Indiana, left its clocks alone in 1974,
# as well as from 1976 through 2005.

# Daviess, Dubois, Knox, and Martin Counties, Indiana,
# switched from eastern to central time in April 2006, then switched back
# in November 2007.

# Perry County, Indiana, switched from eastern to central time in April 2006.

# Pike County, Indiana moved from central to eastern time in 1977,
# then switched back in 2006, then switched back again in 2007.

# Starke County, Indiana moved from central to eastern time in 1991,
# then switched back in 2006.

# Pulaski County, Indiana, switched from eastern to central time in
# April 2006 and then switched back in March 2007.

# Switzerland County, Indiana, did not observe DST from 1973 through 2005.

# Part of Kentucky left its clocks alone in 1974.
# This also includes Clark, Floyd, and Harrison counties in Indiana.

-GAWollman