In the back of our little church section, we have an unassuming cabinet.

The cabinet is the old bell tower controller from the Christ United Presbyterian Church at the corner of 1st Ave and East Charles here in Oelwein. They don’t have a traditional bell tower, however. Note the speakers at the top of the tower. The bells are electronic. They toll at the top of the hour and play tunes.

This controller is from 1963 and made by Schulmerich Carillons, Inc. It was replaced in 2000 by a digital system. The cabinet is very heavy and must weigh at least 2 or 300 pounds. One person can’t even budge it on carpet.

At the top, there is a timer to play the bells automatically on the hour. It works just light those lamp timers with the dial that rotates and the pegs to set the time. Except here, there are 6 possible programs, so the clear rings tell it which program to play.

You can manually ring a single bell. This bell on the front panel swings back and forth to show the ringing. The top and bottom peg can be moved to change the length of the swing.

This panel is for manual ringing. The 5 bells have different pitches. You can turn the tower speakers off and just use the speakers in the cabinet for testing.

The bells use paper just like a player piano, except wider. The bells use mechanical switches to detect the holes, not air moving through them. The paper is a continuous loop. It just piles up in the bin.

Stay tuned for a part 2 where we cover how it works.