If things go as planned, residents will see progress on the completion of the full carillon at the Mahanay bell tower next week.
Verdin Company of Cincinnatti plans to have a large crane in Jefferson early next week. The five bells that now strike the Westminster chime will be lowered from the support structure and set on the deck (the top) of the bell tower. The other nine bells hanging there now will be lowered to the ground.
Those nine bells and the 15 bells now in a display case in the courthouse will be trucked to Cincinnatti to be retrofitted with strikers.
The Westminster bells will remain on the tower deck. Residents will hear the recorded Westminster chimes on the quarter hour.
Once the bells are taken off the support structure, work will begin scraping and repainting the existing structure and fabricating the additional structure needed for the complete 44-bell carillon. Workers will “work around” the five large bells on the tower deck.
Completion of the entire project, including hanging 18 new cast bells, is slated for next spring.
Fundraising for the $440,000 project began in earnest earlier this year and was finished in June when Vision Iowa awarded the foundation an $87,000 Community Attraction and Tourism (CAT) grant. Carole Custer, president of the foundation, spearheaded the fundraising effort.
Per the terms of Floyd Mahanay’s bequest that funded construction of the tower, Greene County owns the tower and is responsible for maintenance of it. The county is paying $76,659 to take down the nine striker-less bells, installing strikers, and prepping and painting the existing structure.
The Bell Tower Community Foundation is paying $363,341 for the expansion portion of the project and includes 18 new cast bells with strikers and strikers for the 15 bells from the courthouse display case, as well as fabrication and mounting of the new bell structure.
