IUP has announced that the restoration of the 150-year-old Sutton Hall bell and it will ring again tomorrow as part of the commemoration of the tragedy on September 11th.
The bell came to IUP in 1875 during the first year of Indiana Normal School. It has been restored with an automatic, magnetized ringer striker. The bell itself is engraved with the date it came to the campus. It rang until the late 1990s when an auto ringer installed on the bell deteriorated. Restoration was completed in 2025 with the university working closely with The Verdin Company of Cincinnati.
The bell will toll six times tomorrow at times that have historical significance for the day: at 8:26 AM and 9:03 AM when the two planes hit the World Trade Center in New York, at 9:37 when a plane crashed into the Pentagon, at 9:59 AM when the first of the World Trade Center Towers collapsed, at 10:03 AM when Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, PA, and 10:28 AM when the second tower collapsed.
IUP will hold its traditional 9-11 commemoration ceremony at 11:10 on Friday near the memorial in the Oak Grove. Speakers will include IUP President Dr. Michael Driscoll, Army Lt. Colonel Laura Hamilton and Retired Army Major General and Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the U.S. Army Leslie Purser from the class of 1980. Music will be provided by IUP’s wind ensemble.
