Facelift for historic Campanile nearly complete

April 23, 2025

Facelift for historic Campanile nearly complete

South ��Ƶ State University's Coughlin Campanile is shown at various stages of progress during its 2024-25 restoration.

Just as Mount Rushmore undergoes routine cleaning and preservation work to hold back the hands of time on that national treasure, the Coughlin Campanile on the South ��Ƶ State University campus recently received a once-in-every-couple-decades facelift.

Now that the scaffolding and fencing have been removed, motorists driving past the 165-foot-tall tower have little clue that a crew from American Masonry Restoration of Fridley, Minnesota, was on site from June 24 to Nov. 19 routing out crumbling mortar and replacing it as well as replacing 1,467 deteriorating bricks.

While that sounds like a lot, it is a small fraction of the 320,000 bricks used in the construction of what in 1929 was the tallest manmade structure in South ��Ƶ. Salvaging bricks from a historic building on the University of Minnesota campus allowed the contractor to match the original bricks.

The restoration is designed to defeat the eroding effects that moisture naturally inflicts on any structure, especially one that isn’t heated or cooled; just subjected to the extremes of South ��Ƶ winters and summers.

Work to resume in late spring

However, the $1.3 million project isn’t fully complete, and it hasn’t been reopened to visitors.

The contractor is to return in late spring to replace a few Bedford Indiana limestone blocks on the Campanile’s base. “It got too late in the season to have the limestone chunks cut and mortared into place,” according to Barry Mielke '02/M.S. '18, associate vice president for Facilities and Services at SDSU. He adds there is also damage to the copper on the glass cupola that the contractor will be asked to provide a repair estimate for.

The light poles that surround the Campanile were removed by Facilities and Services to keep them from being damaged during restoration. Those will be reset after all exterior work is completed, Mielke said.

There is further work to be done on the inside, Mielke added. Moisture has damaged some of the plaster on the ground floor and the observation floor at the top. Facilities and Services will prepare paperwork for that work to go to bid this winter with the work to be done in the summer. Crumbling plaster will need to be removed and replaced as well as repointing damaged interior masonry.

Campanile breaks its silence

While the Campanile isn’t welcoming visitors inside, it has resumed its serenade to the campus and beyond. A new carillon for the Campanile started playing music on Dec. 11 and chimes hourly from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

While the sound of pealing bells comes from the Campanile, the control unit is in nearby Lincoln Hall. Mielke explained that when the previous carillon quit working, it was thought that a connection was severed during remodeling of that historic building in 2018. Subsequent efforts to play the carillon had limited success.

“The controller was relocated to the mechanical room penthouse and worked for a few months before the automated timer stopped working,” he said.

Built in 1929 with funding from 1909 electrical engineering graduate Charles Coughlin, the Campanile has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1987. For decades, students and community members set their watches by the hourly chimes, which also played during the 10-minute interlude between classes.

Among those who missed the chimes in the six years they have been silent is Karen McComish, a 1975 sociology graduate.

“I grew up north of Brookings (Estelline), so I have heard the chimes all my life. Thus, it was important to be able to hear the chimes whenever I come back to campus. It has been a long time since I have heard the chimes, so I am looking forward to hearing them,” said McComish, who now lives in Billings, Montana, with her husband Dick, a 1975 electrical engineering grad.

Both Dick and Karen are loyal Jackrabbits supporters, funding scholarships, undergraduate and graduate fellowships and last spring endowing the first department at State. Karen serves on the Council of Trustees for the SDSU Foundation, and Dick is a member of the Center for Power Systems Studies, so they are back regularly.

The owners of Electrical Consultants Inc. of Billings stepped forward with funds to buy the new digital carillon. The Schulmerich g5 digital carillon comes with 7,800 pre-programmed songs and is fully programable.

New carillon easier to operate

Jonathan Meendering, director of planning and design at SDSU, said the new carillon is simpler to operate.

“The old model required digital numeric coding to program schedules and times. The new model has a modern digital touchscreen interface that simplifies scheduling. Additional improvements include increased storage for songs, remote scheduling and the ability to add custom songs to the bell library.”

“You could play a concert on it,” said Rina Reynolds, associate vice president for philanthropy at the SDSU Foundation. She worked with the McComishes on the donation and with Facilities and Services on the selection of the carillon.

Scaffolding raised eyebrows of onlookers

With the foundation offices right across the street from the Campanile, she also had a front-row seat to the daily tuckpointing task.

“It was an incredibly fascinating engineering feat to watch. I’ve taken pictures over and over as the scaffolding went up and down,” Reynolds said.

American Masonry Restoration used independent mobile scaffolding to do its work. Supports were affixed to the Campanile, and workers could raise or lower the scaffolding with the press of a button. Functionally, it was like an open elevator that went around all four sides of the Campanile.

Mielke noted that the scaffolding made the work much more efficient than the 2001 tuckpointing project that was done for $600,000 with workers repelling on ropes to remove crumbling mortar and replace it. If the 2024 project had used that technique, the cost would have been much higher than $1.3 million, Mielke said.

Drone used for building inspection

Renovation costs are being borne through the university’s maintenance and repair fund as well as alumni donations, he said.

Mielke hopes the current restoration will last for the next 30 to 50 years, but he added that may be optimistic because of greater-than-normal brick expansion and contraction due to the Campanile not being climate controlled.

Given that the last tuckpointing was in 2001, Facilities and Services had been inspecting the structure in recent years. That included getting images from cameras on a drone.

Meendering noted, “That provided high-definition and thermal imagery of all four facades. This imagery revealed deteriorating masonry surfaces, compromised joints and areas of moisture intrusion.”

A request for proposals was sent out in February 2024 and a contract awarded to American Masonry Restoration in April. In late April, small chunks of mortar were spotted on the ground. To prevent anyone from being struck by falling debris, the area was sealed off with caution tape, and the Campanile was closed to climbing.

Restoration work honored by City of Brookings

That put a crimp on traditional graduate photos in front of the Campanile; however, some folks posed for a quick shot before being shooed away.

While the restoration is not yet complete, the work already has won an award. The city of Brookings Mayor’s Award for Historic Preservation for Excellence in Restoration went to the Campanile project.

Meendering said, “As a focal point of university traditions and connection to the historic campus green, the Campanile is not just a building; it is an integral part of the institution's identity. Designed as a landmark to instill pride, it stands as a beacon symbolizing the prestige, progress and achievements of the university.”

Since the Campanile is located on Medary Avenue, which splits east and west campus and is one of the main north-south streets in Brookings, the work generated a lot of looks and more than a few “what’s going on?” questions on social media, Reynolds shared.

The Brookings Area Community Band played most of its summer concerts in the adjacent Sylvan Green this summer, and One Day for STATE activities were held on the Alumni Green, Moriarty Family Plaza and in the foundation parking lot. So, thousands of people were capturing photos of their events with the historic Campanile enclosed in chain-link fence and wrapped with a very unique scaffolding.

Reynolds said, “What is the most fascinating is the amount of care and concern people have for the Campanile. They’re eager to know what is getting fixed and how it is progressing. It’s like a family member they’re checking in on. It shows how important the historical nature of the Campanile is to community members and alumni.”

That elder statesman of the Jackrabbits family, which is less than five years shy of its century mark, has new vigor in its bones and in late August plans to welcome a new class of freshmen up its steps — all 180 of them.