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The FLC Library Committee​
April 2018

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Transcript of Bell Tower Dedication History is below.Thank you Knut Aagaard for your interest in our First Lutheran Church history.   

In 1886, 21 years after the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, seven immigrant families founded the congregation which we have inherited.  Washington was still a territory.  Three years later the white wooden church that was to house the congregation for the next seven decades was completed.

Then in 1907, 21 years after the congregation was founded, the church bell that we see here was purchased for $52.50 from the Polson Supply Company of Seattle, having been cast in Cincinnati, Ohio and shipped west by train in a year when Teddy Roosevelt was president.

The bell served both the church and the town.  For the church, among many celebrations, the bell was rung to alert the congregation that a service would be held that Sunday, when it was Bothell’s turn to host the shared Lutheran pastor who traveled among three congregations.  For the town it was rung as the town fire bell when the need arose, which did happen, sometimes catastrophically.

The bell rang for some 50 years until the little white church was razed in 1959, to be replaced a year later by the present sanctuary and education wing.  A wooden bell tower was added in 1966, and so our bell was rung for a second half century, until the deteriorating wooden bell tower could no longer support the great weight.
And now, 132 years after the seven immigrant families began this congregation, our bell from Ohio, likely more than 110 years after its casting, is installed in its third tower.  May the tower stand strong, and may the bell ring clearly during its second century.
Knut Aagaard
18 March 2018

Check it out!