Hoover Tower Carillon - Stanford, California
Posted by: 
DougK
N 37° 25.669 W 122° 10.015
10S E 573707 N 4142659
Hoover Tower is a 285 feet (87 m) structure on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The tower has a carillon of 48 bells cast in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Waymark Code: WMJEAG
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 11/07/2013
Views: 9
In December 1938, construction plans were announced for a towering library to be built on the Stanford University campus that would hold the library and archives assembled by Herbert Hoover for the study of war and peace.
On May 19, 1939, three months prior to groundbreaking for the construction of Hoover Tower, Hoover sent University president Ray Lyman Wilbur a telegram saying that the carillon of thirty five bells in the Belgian Tower of the Worlds Fair might be obtained for the library building.
Arthur Brown Jr. immediately began redesigning Hoover Tower to accommodate an 18,000-pound carillon that might be available for installation at the top of the tower.
At this time alarming news was coming from Belgium. The fragile peace Hoover had helped broker in 1919 had come apart, and Belgium quickly succumbed when invaded by Nazi Germany in May 1940. Thus the actual deed of sale for the carillon was not signed until October 1, 1940, about halfway through the two-year construction schedule.
Kamiel Lefevere, a Belgian-American carillonneur, dismantled the carillon in New York, supervised its transport by ship from Brooklyn to San Francisco, and reassembled it in the Hoover Tower.
Despite numerous obstacles, the landmark tower and its carillon were completed in time for Stanford's fiftieth anniversary celebration in June 1941.
The above story is excerpted from the Hoover Digest
The story continues as told in the
History of the Hoover Carillon:
In 1971, Professor Angell, noting that the original bells were not tuned to exacting standards and that the weather had taken its toll, began a campaign to have the bells retuned and expanded.
The carillon bells were removed from the Hoover Tower in January 2000 and sent to the Dutch bellfounder Royal Eijsbouts in Asten. The original Belgian foundry no longer existed. After extensive testing by the experts at Eijsbouts, the decision was made to replace eleven of the old bells with newly cast ones tuned to concert pitch. Altogether thirteen bells were added.After two years' work, the restored and expanded carillon was returned to Hoover Tower in February 2002.
The bourdon (largest) bell in the Hoover Carillon bears the inscription uno pro pace sono, “I ring only for peace.”
The Hoover Carillon can be heard playing in a YouTube video.