Journey of the "South Western Bell" & Where it Rests Today
This seemingly sedentary bell has had its fair share of movement, displacement, and re-placement
As a Southwestern student, faculty, or staff member, or even just a visitor to campus, you may or may not know of the “South Western Bell,” but I guarantee you’ve walked past it before if you have been on campus. This bell resides in a highly-trafficked area of campus: to the east of the Charline and Red McCombs Campus Center, near the Academic Mall, in the middle of a small round-a-bout in the sidewalk. It sits there today inactively, snuggled into a circle of large gravel and stones, as can be seen below. Although it may seem static in this inactive position, the South Western Bell has actually made its way around campus, and Georgetown, multiple times.
The bell first lived at the site of Southwestern's Old Campus, which was located about eight blocks west of the Cullen Building. This Old Campus (where Southwestern actually started its history in Georgetown) used the South Western Bell from the early 1870s to 1916, as it was hung in the school’s belfry. Here it woke students, notified them of Chapel and meal times, and rang for the evening curfew. It was called the “South Western bell” because for the first few decades of our existence, the two words were still separated.
As classes, boarding, and operations were moved to the “New Campus” (where Southwestern is situated in Georgetown today), the Old Campus began to be used for overflow housing, storage, athletic fields, and the Fitting School. The South Western Bell was last used there in 1916, for the 1915-1916 Fitting School’s final year on the Old Campus. After this academic year, the land of the Old Campus was sold to the City of Georgetown, which later built a high school there that even later became a site of Georgetown Independent School District (GISD) Offices, but the bell remained in Southwestern’s possession.
After a few years of owning the bell and it remaining on that land inactively, the Southwestern Executive Committee attempted to sell the bell. When nobody demonstrated interest in purchasing it, after about three months, Southwestern instead paid the Georgetown School District to come and remove the bell from their property. It was taken to First Methodist Church, and placed on the Southwest corner of its building.
This placement initiated the bell’s first period of inactivity. After being situated at the Methodist Church for a few years, Southwestern took the bell back to today’s campus, storing it themselves for a few years.
It was not until the completion of the Women’s Building in 1926 that the bell was reinstated as active. Laura Kuykendall, Dean of Women at the time, has been cited as taking the bell herself to the Women’s Building and placing it on the roof above the elevator shaft. The following year, Kuykendall held an entire pageant revolving around the history of this South Western Bell, called the Legend of the Bell Pageant (which you can read more about in a separate pin of Placing Memory).
This claiming and honoring of the bell by Kuykendall and the women of SU seems to be the first time in its history that the bell was deemed special or significant to Southwestern’s collective memory, as before, it had been either inactive or on the market for sale. Further demonstrating this idea, the bell was properly hung in the tower of the Women’s Building after the pageant. Thus it was reactivated into use and meaning in campus culture.
The bell then hung there in functional use, ringing “after athletic victory or a celebration of sorts,” says a 1944 edition of The Megaphone. After over seventy years in this location, the demolition of the Women’s Building (then Laura Kuykendall Hall) in 1996 caused the bell to become displaced, yet again.
William B. Jones in his history of Southwestern stated that the South Western bell resided “on a pedestal in the plaza fronting the Charline and Red McCombs Campus Center,” in 2000, at the time of the book’s publication. Now, it has moved ever so slightly from this position, residing in the middle of a small roundabout of the sidewalk to the east of the Campus Center. It is no longer situated on a pedestal but is instead resting burrowed in the ground among large rocks and gravel.
In either position, the South Western bell, from 1996 to the current day, remains inactive, seemingly settled in its position in a way that would never allow it to manifest its original function. Although it may seem “stuck” here, it has in actuality had a fluid and versatile life, fluxing between active and inactive, mobile and immobile, trash and treasure.
