From Record Eagle - TC residents raise money to restore GT County's historic courthouse clock and bell

Record-Eagle photo/Jan-Michael Stump | From left, Traverse City residents Bernie Riker, Karen Mauro-Doren, Peter Doren, Carol Hale, Ed Kalat and Gary Schilkey are working to restore the clock atop the historic courthouse.

Posted: Saturday, March 14, 2015 

2:50 pm 

BY MICHAEL WALTON 

mwalton@record-eagle.com

TRAVERSE CITY — The 114-year-old bell that used to chime hourly from its perch high atop Grand Traverse County's courthouse fell silent almost 10 years ago. A handful of the courthouse's neighbors want to hear the music again.

"Next to the American flag, there's nothing more iconic to communities than their courthouse bell and clock," Peter Doren said.

Doren, a local attorney, is one of eight people who comprise a committee dedicated to raising money to fix the courthouse's bell and restore its four clock faces -- all without the help of public funding. The Save the Bell Tower committee thus far raised nearly $10,000 in private donations, including nearly $5,000 from one anonymous Boardman neighborhood resident.
The group isn't interested in creating an audible reminder of time's unending march forward, though that's an inevitable side-effect of their efforts to restore the bell and clock. Instead, the committee hopes to preserve a symbol of Grand Traverse County's history, and times long past.

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