The sound of the Old Main bell on the University of Colorado at Boulder campus will join a carillon chorus across Boulder on Feb. 10 as local churches and individuals ring in the city's sesquicentennial -- the celebration of its 150th year.
Kay Oltmans, director of the CU-Boulder Heritage Center, has been given the honor of ringing the bell at Old Main, though she won't have to pull a rope 150 times to do it. Today the process is automated. Oltmans will simply turn a key, throw a switch and listen as the bell chimes on its own. Still, she said, there's something heartwarming about hearing Old Main's antique bell.
"The bell moves and the old timbers in the building creak," said Oltmans. "It's kind of a nostalgic sound."
Old Main's bell will join with others at First Methodist, St. John's Episcopal, Sacred Heart of Jesus and Whittier Elementary School at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 10. Boulder residents are invited to ring individual bells 150 times to celebrate the founding and handbell ringers will be gathering at the Boulder Municipal Building.
CU-Boulder, which came into being just 17 years after Boulder was founded in 1859, has grown along with the city. Where once there was only a barren and wind-swept plain sprawled out before the towering foothills, buildings began to appear. Among them was Old Main, which housed not only the university's first classrooms but also the president's home, the library and the janitor's quarters. There weren't even students in the newly founded state who were prepared to go to college when the cornerstone for Old Main was laid.
Today both the city of Boulder and CU have grown beyond their founders' wildest imaginations. What was once a single building is now a three-campus system. CU-Boulder, the flagship campus, is now home to more than 120 buildings and almost 30,000 students.
Marilyn Haas, coordinator of the Boulder 150 celebration, said the histories of the city and the university are inextricably intertwined.
"The citizens of Boulder put up the money to buy the land for the university and therefore we got it in Boulder in 1876," said Haas.
In 1901, Hass said, the people of Boulder once again stepped up when the university was facing closure for a semester due to an especially cold winter.
"The university didn't have the money to pay the heating bills," said Haas. "Instead, the town came forward to raise the money to pay the bills. That kind of story is super for town-gown relations."
Hass said a survey of "Older Boulder" revealed that the university is what first drew many of the city's older residents here.
The city has certainly benefited greatly from the university being here," said Haas. "Most of the older Boulderites came because of the university and it seems like that generation -- from the classes of the '50s -- stayed. I love the fact that there is such a close relationship."
For more information about the sesquicentennial visit .