In August of this year we made a trip to Philadelphia to attend a family wedding. While there we also managed visits to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell along with a few other spots in that National Historical Park and elsewhere in town, not to mention some excellent restaurants. Naturally, I was on the lookout for Alabama connections and found one at the Liberty Bell Center.
You can read the fascinating history of the Bell here. As we made our way through the panels describing that history, I noted that after the Civil War the Bell was taken on several tours around the United States to various events and celebrations from 1885 until 1915.
So did the Liberty Bell ever come through Alabama? Indeed it did.
Below the photos are three brief items documenting the Bell's journey through the state in 1885. In late 1884 the Bell was moved by rail to New Orleans for the World Cotton Centennial which opened on December 16, 1884 and closed June 2, 1885. The articles note stops in Birmingham and Montgomery on the trip south in January, and another Montgomery stop in June as the Bell returned to Philadelphia.
In June 1919 the Birmingham Age-Herald published a story in which Chappel Cory described the trip he and another Montgomery newspaper man made to the "sea of mudholes" that was Birmingham in January 1885 to accompany the Bell to New Orleans. Cory noted the "crush" of people who appeared at the depot.
As a useful symbol of both patriotism and commerce, the Liberty Bell has permeated American culture in many ways. An example is the Bell's use in the Liberty Bell Savings Bond drive in 1950. The U.S. Treasury Department paid for 55 replicas to be cast in a French foundry, one for each of the 48 states, the District of Columbia, and the territories. Alabama's replica, serial number 38, sits on the state capitol grounds facing Washington Avenue. More information about it is here.
During World War I the U.S. government developed a nitrate plant near Muscle Shoals; nitrate was a key ingredient in ammunition and explosives. Several residential neighborhoods, Nitrate Villages 1-4, were built to house workers, military personnel, etc. Nitrate Village #1 was laid out in the shape of the Liberty Bell. You can read more details with photographs and other illustrations in a lengthy 2021 blog post here.
If you've never been, the Liberty Bell and the other sites in the National Historical Park are well worth seeing when you make it to Philadelphia.
I've written about a visit Sousa made to Birmingham in 1924.
Source: Birmingham Age-Herald 29 June 1919
