A 500-pound cast iron bell has found a home at local mobile app developer startup Myriad Mobile’s Fargo headquarters. The team is using it to celebrate sales; one ring for every zero.

“We needed something loud to celebrate with,” said co-founder Jake Joraanstad.

At first they searched for a gong, but found any decent gong was over $800. Then co-founder Ryan Raguse remembered an old bell that his father had on their farmland.

The bell, made in 1904, is the last remnant of the Tenney Fire Hall in Tenney Minnesota which burnt down in 2010. Raguse’s family salvaged it and had kept it on their farm until the proper time. That time came when Raguse and Joraanstad showed up with a pickup truck.

They had to use a Bobcat to get the bell in the truck, and an engine hoist to haul it into the elevator and up the to Myriad’s lair on the third floor of the Meadowlark.

The bell is currently hanging from an engine hoist in between desks and a conference roo. Joraanstad and Raguse are planning to construct a proper stand using the original support rods, they said.

They have named it Isabell. Get it.

Like the Myriad Mobile flag that waves atop the Meadowlark building, the bell adds to the medieval theme that Joraanstad and Raguse have established as part of their branding. It hearkens, too, to their Viking heritage, and the spirit of the Norse, they said.

“We’re the only company in this city that has a flag or a bell,” Joraanstad said. “Bells and flags. Why the heck would you not?”

 

Photos courtesy of Emerging Prairie.