The Sky's the Limit-South Dakota State University's Campanile

The Coughlin Campanile, when completed on the campus of South Dakota State University in Brookings in 1929, was to this small, rural state what Mount Rushmore is for it South Dakota today. The 165-foot edifice was an icon and a beacon out on the flatlands that was for the students and visitors to the campus a sight to see. Steps leading to the top were tread by thousands who for the first time in their lives were seeing the landscape from a height not even a climb to the top of their farm’s windmill would behold. Its chimes called the classes and played popular music of the day. The Campanile was a gift to the university by a 1909 graduate Charles Coughlin, who became a very successful businessman leading the way for the Briggs & Stratton Company, whose co-founder was a college friend of Coughlin’s, Stephen Briggs. This is the story of who the Campanile came to be, and how it was built.