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Last updated on Sunday, April 7, 2013
(BLOOMFIELD0 - For Bloomfield Town Council President Doug Frye it’s not about being saved by the bell.
Nick Schneider, of the Greene County Daily World reports, instead, he wants to save the old historic bell on the Greene County Courthouse lawn from what he called weather-related deterioration.
Tuesday morning, Frye addressed the Greene County Commissioners saying they need to take action to move the historic bill mounted on a slab of concrete on the northeast court of the courthouse square in Bloomfield.
"It (the bell) is out there (on the lawn) deteriorating. That's part of our history in the county. It wouldn't cost that much to bring it back inside (the courthouse building) and put it in a hallway. There has got to be a place in here that it could be mounted to be on display for people who want to walk by and see it in a protected environment," Frye said. "I'd just like you to consider doing that."
Commissioner's president Rick Graves told Frye, "We'll look at that bell."
The historic 126-year-old bronze bell, which was formerly in the courthouse clock tower, was moved to the courthouse lawn in January 2007 after being tucked silently away in the rafters above the attic of the courthouse since the mid-1950s.
It was given a more public resting place by the county commissioners as part of the courthouse renovation project.
The bell is mammoth in size - weighing more than a ton and measures approximately 48 inches tall and more than 42 inches around.
Jim Corey, the courthouse construction project manager, told the Greene County Daily World in 2007 that the old bell was cast and purchased by the county in 1886 from McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore, Md., during the fourth courthouse building project in the county.
Through a computer search, Corey found that the original foundry still exists and is now the only large Western-style bell maker in the United States ---- one of about seven in the world.
Corey, a construction engineer by trade, said he was amazed that a bronze bell of this size was fabricated on the east coast and then transported ---- mostly likely by rail ---- to rural Indiana more than a century ago.
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