Seventy-Two Bells Over Aurora Avenue: The Carillon That Rings in Naperville's Seasons

You can hear Naperville's tallest landmark before you see it. Moser Tower, at 443 Aurora Avenue on the edge of the Riverwalk, stands 160 feet tall and houses the Millennium Carillon — 72 bells spanning six octaves, an instrument rare enough that Naperville's is counted among the few grand carillons in the world.

The project began in the late 1990s as the city's way of marking the year 2000, backed by a $1 million gift from Harold and Margaret Moser and contributions from scores of bell sponsors and donors. Naperville was designated an official White House Millennium Community in 1999, and the carillon was dedicated in June 2000.

The bells themselves were cast by the Royal Eijsbouts bell foundry in the Netherlands. They range from ten pounds to nearly six tons, with a combined weight of 32.5 tons. The largest, a 5.8-ton bell nicknamed Big Joe in honor of city founder Captain Joseph Naper, strikes the hour.

A carillon is not a recording or a mechanism alone — it is played, by a carillonneur working a keyboard of wooden levers and pedals in a cabin high in the tower. Concerts run from spring through fall, and on summer evenings the lawns of Rotary Hill fill with listeners picnicking within earshot of the whole city center.

The tower has needed care as it has aged: structural issues found in 2017 led to a major repair program in the early 2020s addressing corroded steel and cracked concrete. As November quiet settles over the hill, the bells still mark the hours over downtown — a sound Naperville chose for itself at the turn of the millennium, now as much a part of the city's identity as the river below.