In 1924 President Morgan unsuccessfully sought a donor to install chimes in Ayres. In 1939 President Hoskins solicited information from Duke University about their bells, with an eye toward installation of chimes for Ayres. In 1940 the All Students’ Club installed chimes for the Ayres Hall Tower and floodlights lighting Ayres. The chimes were installed as part of the Massey Memorial Organ in the Alumni Memorial Building, and loudspeakers at Ayres broadcast the chimes. In 1950 in celebration of its 50th anniversary at the university, alumnae of the Pi Chapter of Chi Omega sorority gave Westminster clock chimes for the tower.
Elizabeth Dyer, national vice president of Chi Omega and head of the College of Home Economics at the University of Cincinnati, was the guest of honor at the dedication of the chimes on April 1. Vice President F. C. Smith gave the invocation; the Reverend William Lea offered the dedicatory prayer; and Ethel Baumann, president of the UT Chi Omega Chapter, gave the welcome. Mary D. Estill McNeill made the official dedication, and UT President C. E. Brehm accepted the chimes and a commemorative plaque for the university. Designed to duplicate the sequence of notes used by the famous Westminster Chimes of London, the Ayres Tower installation consisted of a five-note unit controlled by a clock mechanism and amplified with four sound projectors. It sounded the Westminster sequence in quarters of the hour.
The Ayres chimes ceased to function in 1980, and components were stolen in 1982. The Class of 1991 chose to donate their class gift for replacement of the chimes. Because the class gift contributions proved insufficient, the university replaced the chimes. As part of the renovation of Ayres in 2009 to 2010, an electronic carillon that simulates bells was installed, together with a clock system, and the funds raised by the Class of 1991 were added to the endowment established by the Ayres family to provide maintenance for the chimes and clocks. The electronic carillon and clock system was purchased from the Verdin Company of Cincinnati for approximately $80,000.