International Meridian Conference
On 11 October 1883, a convention of railroad executives met in Chicago and agreed to the implementation of five time zones in North America, using as a basis Greenwich Mean Time. Before the invitations to the Washington conference were sent out on December 1, the joint efforts of Abbe, Fleming and William Frederick Allen, Secretary of the US railways' "General Time Convention" and Managing Editor of the "Travellers' Official Guide to the Railways", had brought the US railway companies to an agreement which led to standard railway time being introduced at noon on 18 November 1883 across the nation. Although this was not legally established until 1918, there was thus a strong sense of "fait accompli" that preceded the Washington conference, although setting local times was not part of the remit of the conference.
Bill Sheffield
While governor, Sheffield pushed an unpopular bill through the state legislature to consolidate Alaska's time zones. Prior to the passage of this bill, Alaska was spread over four time zones (Pacific, Yukon, Alaska-Hawaii, and Bering). Sheffield's bill placed virtually the entire state (with the sole exception of the Aleutians, starting just west of Dutch Harbor) into the Yukon Time Zone (which was then renamed the Alaska Time Zone). Initially, this was poorly received; those in the panhandle lost their sense of unity with the west coast of the United States, and those in the heartland of the state were placed, in effect, in a perpetual daylight saving time. More than twenty years later, the state legislature was still debating the issue, with some members wanting to return the panhandle and capital to Seattle time, and with others claiming that Sheffield broke his promise to revisit the change after a one-year trial period.