UNI's Campanile: Iowa Time Machine September 19, 1926

Iowa Time Machine ⏰: On September 19, 1926, thousands of people gathered at Iowa State Teachers College in Cedar Falls to hear a new voice rise above campus: the chimes of the Campanile. The 101-foot tower, now among the University of Northern Iowa’s most recognizable landmarks, as a public memorial, a timekeeper, and a musical addition.

At the annual alumni meeting in June 1914, Alumni Association president Fred Sage appointed a committee to consider a suitable memorial for the institution’s faculty, graduates, students, and friends. The committee proposed a 100-foot bell tower with a clock, but fundraising moved slowly. By 1919, college supporters described the proposed tower as a memorial to war efforts as well as to the people who had founded and sustained the school. This was the Iowa State Teachers College era, decades before the institution adopted the name University of Northern Iowa in 1967, and the project reflected the broad public constituency behind teacher education in Iowa.

Work finally gained momentum in 1924, when alumni and students revived the campaign under the slogan, “A Campanile for I.S.T.C. in 1926.” Eliza Rawstern Sands Wright, a member of the Normal School’s first four-year graduating class in 1880, turned the first shovelful at the groundbreaking on November 18, 1924. The tower’s cornerstone followed on June 1, 1925. Built with a granite base from Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, brick from Rockford, Illinois, and limestone from Bedford, Indiana, the completed tower rose about 101 feet and bore the inscription, “In Memory of Founders and Builders of Iowa State Teachers College.”

The structure’s original 15 bells, cast by the Meneely Company of Watervliet, New York, honored constituencies ranging from Cedar Falls citizens and Iowa schoolchildren to faculty, students, alumni, teachers, wartime heroes, and athletic activities. At the September 19 dedication, the College Eye estimated that 12,500 people attended. Its original chime expanded into a 47-bell carillon in 1968, and later additions brought the total to 56 bells, with some still dating to the original 1926 installation. The tower’s music remains mechanically produced by the bells themselves, preserving the physical craft of levers, wires, pulleys, clappers, and keyboards that has animated the structure across generations. #Iowa #OTD #History #NorthernIowa #Campanile