The Courthouse Bell
On December 30, 1966, workers from Zebrowski and Associates, the company that demolished the third Delaware County courthouse, rearranged piles of rubble to make room for a crane. In an effort to salvage several parts of the courthouse, including the bell, the crane needed to be moved as close as possible to the tower. According to an article in the Muncie Evening Press, the bell was to be retained by the county and put in a place of honor on the plaza of the soon to be built county building. That wasn’t exactly what happened. It was more complicated than that.
In a nutshell, during the next fifteen years, the bell traveled to several locations before it landed in its current location in front of the former Justice Center.
But let’s go back, though, to the beginning. The bell was cast by Buckeye Bell Foundry located in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1848, moved to Muncie, and placed in the second Delaware County courthouse. When that courthouse was replaced, the bell was moved to the tower of the new courthouse.
After the bell was removed in 1966, it remained on the site for almost a year. Fearful that the bell could be damaged during construction of the new county building, the Delaware County Historical Society board of directors asked permission to move it to the Wheeling Pike farm of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Stradling. It remained there, along with the statues that had adorned the third courthouse, for several years. Eventually, though, it had to be moved again. This time it traveled to the lobby of the county building, where it stayed for several more years before it was placed in front of the Justice Center, probably in 1990. About twenty years earlier, county officials decided that ownership should go to the Historical Society, and that’s how it stands now. DCHS owns the bell, but, as of today, it will stay right where it is. If anything changes, we’ll let you know.
