ST. PETER, Minn. (AP) - The Latest on a mystery bell in southern Minnesota (all times local):
6:20 p.m.
The mystery of a large bell in southern Minnesota apparently has been solved.
A rural St. Peter man who anonymously donated a large school bell to a history center stepped forward Thursday. Steve Scholl says he dropped the bell off near a back door four years ago.
Scholl came forward after reading a story about the bell in The Free Press . He informed Traverse des Sioux Treaty Site staff the 200-pound bell once hung atop an elementary school on the north side of St. Peter. The school was torn down in the early 1960s.
Some had believed the bell hung at the St. Peter’s Arts and Heritage Center until a tornado destroyed the building in 1998.
Sandell searched until he came across old St. Peter school records from 1886 including an order for a bell for a new elementary school.
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11:10 a.m.
History experts in southern Minnesota are investigating the possibility that a large bell anonymously left at a historic site in the state a few years ago is the same one that once hung in St. Peter’s history center.
The Mankato Free Press reports that the 132-year-old brass object was left at the Traverse des Sioux Treaty Site. Some believe the bell hung at the St. Peter’s Arts and Heritage Center until a tornado destroyed the building in 1998.
Eileen Holz is vice president of the Nicollet County Historical Society. She used information stamped on the bell to locate where it was created, discovering that Philip Dick of St. Peter may have purchased the bell in 1886.
Officials are waiting for more proof before confirming the piece is the missing bell.
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Information from: The Free Press, http://www.mankatofreepress.com
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