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After a political decision on December 15, 1864, the Christoffelturm was removed by Gottlieb Ott, a Swiss building contractor. Ott began the destruction of the tower in spring of the following year.
The decision to remove the tower, which had become a landmark of sorts, was not met without opposition, and the motion of removal succeeded only by a 415 to 411 vote.
During an extended period of time, other statues existed near or actually on the site where the tower used to stand. These included a statue of King David, both as a boy holding a slingshot, and as a man. An early 20th century plan to erect a figure of the Bernese knight Rudolf von Erlach was never realised.
The tower was originally of wood, when it was built sometime between 1218 and 1220. It survived until sometime in the very early 15th century, when it was burned down in the fire that struck the city in 1405.
However, it was rebuilt with a new Masonry design, and has stood ever since. It was when it was rebuilt that it was fitted with a clock. The clock too, however, soon broke, and was left unserviced and broken for 122 years before 1530, when Caspar Brunner installed a new well-functioning mechanism.
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