By Tom Myers, Alpine Historical Society
For The Alpine Sun
Painters from Mark Nielson’s ProMark Painting Company needed an articulated lift platform to reach the highest point on the bell tower at the Alpine Community Church this week when they performed essential maintenance and refinishing for the wooden structure. The painters started work on July 10 to scrape, patch, repair and paint the tower that houses one of the oldest historic artifacts in Alpine.
By Tom Myers, Alpine Historical Society
For The Alpine Sun
Painters from Mark Nielson’s ProMark Painting Company needed an articulated lift platform to reach the highest point on the bell tower at the Alpine Community Church this week when they performed essential maintenance and refinishing for the wooden structure. The painters started work on July 10 to scrape, patch, repair and paint the tower that houses one of the oldest historic artifacts in Alpine.
The Community Church sanctuary building was constructed 65 years ago and has been one of the architectural gems of our town from its earliest days. However, the bell in the tower dates back to 1899 when Benjamin Arnold had it installed on the crown jewel of Alpine, the Town Hall, which since 1932 has been owned and maintained by the Alpine Woman’s Club. In 1933, the Woman’s Club gave the historic bell to the Alpine Community Church where it was installed in the chapel built that same year. Then in 1950 the “Little Brown Chapel in the Hills”, as it was called at the time, was relocated east to face Marshall Road, and the new church sanctuary was constructed on the same site facing Victoria Drive. The bell, now 118 years old, has from the very beginning been used to call citizens to town meetings, worship services, weddings, funerals, patriotic events and to sound the alarm in times of crisis. On July 4, 1962, the bell joined with others nationwide in the first “Let Freedom Ring” observance, a project of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs in America. This year, the old Alpine Bell was joined by other church bells in Alpine to ring in the start of the Fourth of July parade.
Protection from rain and inclement weather is essential to maintain the bell and extend its life, so the Community Church undertakes a bell tower restoration project about every 20 years or so to assure that the bell will have a safe and secure perch from which it still rings every Sunday and on special events to call the citizens to worship or to other important events in the life of the community.
