A sound long silenced is being heard again in downtown Butler. The bell in the Butler County courthouse tower is again sounding on the hour and on the half hour.

John Campbell, the country director of facilities and operations, said the bell ringing was discontinued in the mid-1990s when the residents of the neighboring Historic Lafayette Apartments complained about the noise.

The silence only deepened when the bell's controller got struck by lightning in 2017 and ruined, County Commissioner Kevin Boozel said.

The 2,500-pound bell was forged by the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore in 1896. According to an inscription on the bell, it was installed in 1907 during a courthouse expansion that added a third and fourth story and a new roof. The fourth story provides access to the housing for the tower clocks and the bell.

Boozel said he made it a priority when he was elected in 2016 to get the bell ringing again.

It became a reality this year as county maintenance workers went into the bell chamber above the clocks in the courthouse tower and replaced the motor and adjusted the mechanism that activates the striker that sounds the bell.

Campbell said the bell began ringing out the hour and half hour on Aug. 10.

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