Storke Tower
campanile of the University of California, Santa Barbara
Storke Tower is a landmark campanile (bell tower) located on the campus of the University of California, Santa Barbara in the United States. Dedicated for use on September 28, 1969, the 61-bell carillon tower stands 175 ft (53 m) tall. It was designed by the San Francisco architecture firm Clark and Morgan.
Structure
The bells range in size from 13 to 4,793 pounds, with the largest bell carrying the university seal and university motto. Other bells carry quotes and dedications, including "The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas" (Clark Kerr) and "These bells ring for the freedom of the press and in tribute to Editor-Publisher Thomas More Storke, whose affection for the University made this building possible." The tower has been affectionately known as "Storke's last erection" by students, reflecting both its unique profile and Thomas Storke's age at the time of its construction.
At every hour, an electronic control system plays the Westminster Quarters. The system also strikes a sequence at 10 minutes to every hour which spells out the university motto, "Let There Be Light" (with each of the 10 largest bells assigned a letter of the alphabet). The carillon suffered technical difficulties from 1994 to 1999, in 2004, and again in 2007.
Storke Tower is the tallest steel/cement structure in Santa Barbara County.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Storke Tower” is campanile of the University of California, Santa Barbara. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Storke, Tower and campanile, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “campanile of the University of California, Santa Barbara” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7620067. Authority coordinates are 34.413, -119.848. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1969, 1994, 1999 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Storke Tower” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.