History
The idea of erecting a bell tower on the University of Alabama campus was initially suggested in 1919. It was envisioned as a war memorial for those who fought in World War I. Due to a lack of funding for its construction, the project never materialized.
In the late 1920s, university students were finally successful in collecting the necessary funding to construct a tower, although not as a war memorial. It was done in an effort to dedicate the structure to university president George Denny, after learning of a rumor that he was looking to leave the university and return to his native Virginia.
The tower was built by Skinner, Maxwell and Company at a final cost of $40,000. It was dedicated on May 27, 1929, with Governor Bibb Graves in attendance.
Read more about this topic: Denny Chimes
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“This is the greatest week in the history of the world since the Creation, because as a result of what happened in this week, the world is bigger, infinitely.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world. The past is thus as real as the present.”
—Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887–1971)