Liberty Bell of the West Archives

Bill Nowell of Nowell’s Camera shop invited Girlfriend Lila and me to go on a ramble to Ste. Genevieve one weekend in 1966 or 1967. On the way, we stopped to see the Liberty Bell of the West. Back in those days, you could walk right up to it and give it a ring or two. Today, you have to push a button that causes a door to open, and you have to look through bars.

The bell was given by King Louis XV of France to the Catholic Church of the Illinois Country in 1741. The people of Kaskaskia rang it in celebration after American General George Rogers Clark occupied the town on July 4, 1778.

Photo gallery of the Liberty Bell in 2012

I haven’t run across the negatives from the Nowell trip, but here are some photos from 2012. Click on any photo to make it larger, then use your arrow keys to move through the gallery.

Kaskaskia Bell State Memorial 11-09-2012

Son Matt, Sarah and Malcolm made a pilgrimage to Cape to help Mother kick off an early Birthday Season (the real one isn’t until October, but school is out in the summer). He knew I was going to be busy packing and truckin’ on down the road, so he loaned me some pictures he shot while driving between Cape and St. Louis. I figured it was time to dust them off since a Facebook friend was looking for barn photos.

This barn was taken near Oak Ridge. Click on the photos to make them larger.

We’re in Illinois?

Sarah was surprised to find herself in Illinois without crossing the Mississippi River when they went over on Kaskaskia Island from St. Mary. (OK, I cheated. this is my photo taken last fall.)

On the road

I thought this looked like the bottomlands on the way to Kaskaskia, but Matt swears it was near Chester.

Immaculate Conception Church

They got to see the Liberty Bell of the West and the Immaculate Conception Church, founded in 1675. The church has had a tough time with floods over the years, but it always comes back.

Cape Central High Photos

Ken Steinhoff, Cape Girardeau Central High School Class of 1965, spent half a century in the ink-slinging business for papers in Missouri, Ohio, North Carolina, and Florida.

He retired in 2008 and has been spending time scanning hundreds of thousands of images because “photos once taken as news have grown enough whiskers that they’ve become history.”

Please comment on the articles when you see he may have left out a bit of history, forgotten a name or when your memory of a circumstance conflicts with his.

(His mother said her stories improved after all the folks who could contradict died off.)

Your information helps to make this a wonderful archive and may end up in book form.

Tag: Liberty Bell of the West