Like many communities across the country, the City of Liberty participated in planning projects and events to celebrate the American Bicentennial in 1976. Mayor Lewie Majors appointed the Liberty Bicentennial Commission on February 14, 1973, to initiate the process well in advance of the milestone year. The commission selected two major projects for the 200th anniversary of U.S. independence: a new home for the city’s replica of America’s Liberty Bell, and a fun-filled, patriotic Bicentennial festival to be held in the spring of ’76.

Liberty’s Liberty Bell is an important part of the community’s history and has a connection to the more famous one in Philadelphia. Both bells were cast by the same company, Whitechapel Bell Foundry, based in London, England. In 1960, Whitechapel cast what they say was the first true replica of the bell from the original cast. The bell was made for the Liberty Muscular Dystrophy Research Foundation (LMDRF) to promote the Foundation and its mission. Liberty residents Sallie and Nadine Woods established the Foundation in 1950 after suffering from the disease themselves. LMDRF was the first foundation created to increase awareness of muscular dystrophy and raise funds for medical research to find a cure.

The bell was unveiled in front of the Liberty courthouse with much fanfare. Even legendary actor John Wayne was on hand to greet the crowd. Images below feature Wayne (top right) at the dedication ceremony and Roy Rogers with wife Dale Evans (bottom left) and the Woods sisters.

For many years, the bell had been in storage outside of Liberty in nearby Houston. In 1971, LMDRF’s board of directors transferred custody and control of the bell to the Woods sisters. The sisters wanted the bell returned home to Liberty and asked local attorneys Charles W. Fisher Jr. and John Middleton to head a committee to arrange the bell’s return and to have a suitable tower erected. This committee joined forces with the Liberty Bicentennial Commission to achieve this goal.

The Woods sisters presented the bell to the citizens of Liberty in July 1974, and in December of that year the bell was temporarily placed in the foyer of the city’s Geraldine D. Humphreys Cultural Center pending construction of the bell tower. The tower site would be in the area behind the Cultural Center. The Commission began soliciting funds for the construction, accepting contributions from area residents as well as applying for grants from various nonprofit organizations and the state Bicentennial Commission, with a goal of raising $30,000 to cover the cost. The architectural and engineering firm Brown & Root was selected to design the tower, which was completed in time for the community’s Bicentennial festival.

Planning for the Bicentennial festival, which took place the weekend of April 24-25, 1976, was also a major undertaking. Among the activities were a parade complete with floats, area school bands, and dignitaries; the dedication ceremony for the bell tower and ringing of the Liberty Bell; skits and musical performances in the Humphreys Cultural Center; and a historic homes tour conducted by the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). 

Dignitaries taking part in the event included former Texas Governors Price Daniel and Preston Smith, former Guam Governor Bill Daniel (portraying Sam Houston), Alabama-Coushatta Chief Robert Fulton Batisse, and Vice Consul for Great Britain Colin Lord and his wife. 

Liberty’s celebration of the nation’s Bicentennial culminated with a bell ringing ceremony on July 4 at 1:00 p.m. on the Humphreys Cultural Center grounds, hosted by the Bicentennial Commission. Liberty’s Liberty Bell joined other bells across the United States in ringing for two minutes, coinciding with the exact moment that Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell proclaimed the nation’s independence in 1776.

Visitors may view the special exhibit on this topic, Patriotism Lives in Liberty: Celebrating the 1976 American Revolution Bicentennial at the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center during business hours, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and Saturday 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. The historical collection Liberty (Tex.) American Bicentennial Collection documenting the work of the Liberty Bicentennial Commission is now available for research at the SHC. 

Research Webinar on the Woods Sisters and Muscular Dystrophy: https://youtu.be/epcrZH1QRsc?si=EfELj8tMZZaKlt7o

Sources: 

Liberty (Tex.) American Bicentennial Collection, SHC, TSLAC.

Liberty Vindicator, Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center Newspaper Collection, SHC, TSLAC.

The SHC Quarterly Book Club will meet January 27 at the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center (SHC) in Liberty to discuss the novel The Briar Club by Kate Quinn.

Quinn’s work of historical fiction centers around a boarding house in 1950s Washington, DC, and the various women renting rooms from the home’s owner. Join the group for this fun, free, and informal gathering of readers from 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. No membership or registration is required.

Featuring fictional works with a connection to the world of museums, archives, and libraries, the SHC book club is open to all and meets in the Center’s main building at 650 FM 1011 in Liberty. Home to extensive archival holdings documenting Southeast Texas, a library collection and a museum, the Center offers an ideal setting for discussions about novels tied to these fields. Each meeting will be led by SHC staff.

Interested participants may obtain a copy of the novels through their local library or favorite bookstore to prepare for the conversation. For more information, contact SHC staff at (936) 336-8821 or via email at SamHoustonCenter@tsl.texas.gov.

The Sam Houston Center is a component of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and serves as the official regional historical resource depository for the 10 Southeast Texas counties of Chambers, Hardin, Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Newton, Orange, Polk, San Jacinto, and Tyler. The Center’s primary mission is to collect, preserve, and provide access to historically significant state and local government records and publications of the designated region and secondarily to serve as a library of Texana and genealogical resources.

The Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center in Liberty has announced that it will host its second Family History Day of 2024 on Saturday, Oct. 5 from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. 

Steven Kantner, Digital Assets Archivist at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission (TSLAC), will share tips and tricks for preserving family photos and media. Photos from yesterday or centuries past all present challenges to those hoping to make the images last for future generations. Morning and afternoon sessions will offer instructions on how to properly care for family photographs and ensure the information is not lost to time. Participants will learn about photograph identification, proper storage and handling, safely creating digital images, digital archiving and other activities related to preserving personal collections.

Family History Day Schedule:            
10 a.m. – 12 noon           Identification and preservation session
12 noon – 1:30 p.m.        Lunch break (on your own)
1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.      Digitization and digital archiving session

A free preservation kit will be provided to pre-registered participants. Contact SHC via email at samhoustoncenter@tsl.texas.gov or call (936) 336-8821 to register. Seating is limited.

The Sam Houston Center is a component of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and serves as the official regional historical resource depository for the 10 Southeast Texas counties of Chambers, Hardin, Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Newton, Orange, Polk, San Jacinto and Tyler. The Center’s primary mission is to collect, preserve and provide access to historically significant state and local government records and publications of the designated region and secondarily to serve as a library of Texana and genealogical resources. 

Lisa Meisch, Sam Houston Center Archivist/Curator

The Olympic Torch Relay begins at a ceremony in the city of Olympia, Greece, the site of the ancient Olympic Games, at the ruins of the temple of the goddess Hera. An actress playing the temple’s high priestess lights the flame using a parabolic mirror that concentrates the sun’s rays. She then passes it to the first torchbearer, and the relay begins, carrying the flame to its final destination, the Olympic stadium in the host city of the Games. When the flame arrives, the final torchbearer lights the Olympic cauldron, which remains lit for the duration of the Games and is extinguished at the closing ceremony.

In 1996, the city of Atlanta, Georgia, hosted the Summer Olympics. The Olympic flame arrived in Los Angeles, California (site of the 1932 and 1984 Summer Games) from Athens, Greece, on April 27. During its journey across the continental United States, the relay passed for the first time through Southeast Texas, on May 22. In Liberty, a ceremony was held on the grounds of the Geraldine D. Humphreys Cultural Center, and the city provided lunch to all the relay participants. Liberty was one of only five cities in Texas where the relay stopped for such an event. 

The Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center’s Olympic Torch Relay Collection documents the Olympic Torch Relay event in Liberty and the relay’s passage through Southeast Texas. The collection includes photographs of the Liberty event and local relay participants, clippings from various Southeast Texas newspapers pertaining to the relay as it passed through the area, event maps, meeting minutes and notes documenting the planning and organizing of the Liberty event by a local committee, posters and other publicity materials, and the torch carried by torchbearer Don Kelly of Beaumont in the Liberty area.

At the Liberty ceremony, a small Olympic cauldron was lit by incoming torchbearer Sharon Davis, a message from the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games was read, and the four Liberty County torchbearers (Larry Wadzeck, Mable McKnight, Sharon Davis, and Timothy Daniel) were introduced and spoke to the crowd. Combined bands from Liberty, Barbers Hill, and Huffman-Hargraves high schools provided Olympic-themed music, including “Olympic Fanfare” and “Bugler’s Dream.” The flame resumed its journey when torchbearer Tim Daniel lit his torch from the cauldron and carried it out of the Humphreys Cultural Center and back to its U.S. Highway 90 route. The city’s Liberty Bell replica was rung during the arrival and departure of the flame.

From Liberty the relay passed through the communities of Ames, Raywood, Devers, Nome, China, Beaumont, Vidor, and Orange before continuing into Louisiana.

Many of the torchbearers had been nominated as “community heroes.” Criteria included volunteer work and service as a community leader, role model, or mentor. The Olympic Organizing Committee selected 5,500 community heroes out of 40,000 candidates. Thirty-eight were from Southeast Texas, representing Dayton, Liberty, Devers, Orange, Beaumont, Port Arthur, Port Neches, Bridge City, and Vidor.  

The Olympic Torch Relay is a major event for every community through which it passes en route to the Olympics host city, and May 22, 1996, was undoubtedly a memorable and exciting day for the residents of Southeast Texas. As Brendan Harris, director of the relay event for sponsor Coca-Cola, told the Baytown Sun, “These people are the reason we do this. It gives people from these small towns a chance to share in the Olympic experience. And it gives a town like Liberty the chance to be the host city of the Olympics for a day.”

Visitors may view the Olympic Torch Relay Collection at the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center during business hours, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and Saturday 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. The finding aid is on Texas Archival Resources Online (TARO): Olympic Torch Relay Collection.

Sources:

Olympic Torch Relay Collection, Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center

The Olympic Flame
https://olympics.com/en/news/the-amazing-story-of-the-olympic-flame

The Olympic Torch and the Flame Relay
https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Document%20Library/OlympicOrg/Documents/Document-Set-Teachers-The-Main-Olympic-Topics/The-Olympic-Flame-and-Torch-Relay.pdf

Atlanta 1996: The Torch
https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/atlanta-1996/torch-relay

Mark your calendars for Friday, June 14, when the Sam Houston Regional Library and Research Center invites you to stargaze with an expert at the Center’s Amateur Astronomy Night. Village Creek State Park Interpreter Alex Stamatis will lead visitors on a tour of the night sky from 8:30 until approximately 10:00 p.m. Learn to locate constellations and view some of the season’s most fascinating celestial objects using telescopes, binoculars and the naked eye.  

With assistance from Trinity National Wildlife Refuge Biologist Laurie Gonzales and the Refuge’s interns, Stamatis will also explain the impact of light pollution on observation and the environment. Visitors are encouraged to bring along flashlights, especially red-light flashlights, and join the fun on the Center’s grounds at 650 FM 1011, Liberty, Texas. (In the case of inclement weather or poor viewing conditions, the event will be moved to Friday, June 21.)

The Sam Houston Center is a component of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and serves as the official regional historical resource depository for the 10 Southeast Texas counties of Chambers, Hardin, Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Newton, Orange, Polk, San Jacinto and Tyler. The Center’s primary mission is to collect, preserve and provide access to historically significant state and local government records and publications of the designated region and secondarily to serve as a library of Texana and genealogical resources. 

For questions about events, collections, and services at the Sam Houston Center call (936) 336-8821 or send an email to: SamHoustonCenter@tsl.texas.gov. Visit their website at: https://www.tsl.texas.gov/shc.