Liberty Bell (Arkansas State Capitol Grounds)

Arkansas received a replica of the Liberty Bell in 1950 as part of a national savings bond drive; it later became the centerpiece of a monument on the grounds of the Arkansas State Capitol to commemorate the United States’ bicentennial.

In 1950, the U.S. Treasury Department commissioned the creation of copies of the Liberty Bell to be delivered to all forty-eight states and Hawaii and Alaska (then territories), as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and Washington DC, as part of a savings bond drive to help retire the nation’s military debt from World War II. The Paccard Foundry in France cast the bells, each weighing 2,080 pounds, just like the original. The bells, which were paid for “as a gift to the government by America’s copper industry,” would first tour the United States on Ford flatbed trucks adorned with loudspeakers and patriotic bunting. The Paccard Foundry retained one bell, and others were delivered to the U.S. Treasury Department, the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum, and Tokyo, Japan.

State savings bond chairman W. W. Campbell, president of the National Bank of Eastern Arkansas in Forrest City (St. Francis County), announced on February 25, 1950, that 1950’s bond drive would run from May 15 to July 4, using the Liberty Bell as its campaign symbol and “Save For Your Independence” as its slogan. Arkansas’s quota for the drive was $4,157,000, and the national drive ultimately raised $650 million.

The bell was used at bond rallies around the state, including stops in Fayetteville (Washington County), Ozark (Franklin County), Fordyce (Dallas County), Danville (Yell County), Searcy (White County), North Little Rock (Pulaski County), and Osceola (Mississippi County). Arkansas’s Liberty Bell was officially turned over to the state on June 26, 1950, when Campbell presented it to Governor Sid McMath. On July 7, the Capitol Arts Commission approved locating the bell in the Arkansas State Capitol rotunda.

The Liberty Bell replica sat in the southeastern corner of the rotunda for the next twenty-six years, though it was taken from the capitol to Petit Jean Mountain in May 1961 to be used in a savings bond ceremony, during which Governor Orval Faubus rang it. In 1973, an escapee from the psychiatric wing of what now is the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences “attempted to ring a large replica of the Liberty Bell in the Capitol rotunda” before he “burst into a room…in which Governor [Dale] Bumpers was holding a press conference.” He was quickly detained and returned to the hospital.

On May 13, 1974, Arkansas Secretary of State Kelly Bryant and former U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snyder of Jonesboro (Craighead County) rang the bell “to mark the ‘launch’ of plans to mark the nation’s 200^th birthday.” The following year, Lieutenant Governor Joe Purcell, chairman of the Arkansas American Revolution Bicentennial Celebration Committee, asked the public “to submit ideas for a lasting Bicentennial memorial on the Capitol grounds” incorporating the replica bell.

Apparently, no acceptable designs were submitted, so Secretary of State George O. Jernigan Jr. asked senior architectural students at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville to develop designs. An ad hoc committee of Purcell, Jernigan, Governor David Pryor, Senator Max Howell of Jacksonville (Pulaski County), and Representative William F. Foster of England (Lonoke County) would review the designs and select one to go before the committee for approval. They chose one by Amir Amoudeh, an Iranian student, which was “a cylindrical structure 30 feet high and about 38 feet in circumference. The walls [would] be 50 thin vertical slabs, each representing a state” and the Liberty Bell replica would hang inside over “a small sunken fountain.” The committee approved the design on February 21 with the suggestion that the fifty slabs be reduced to thirteen to represent the original colonies.

Amoudeh was displeased with the proposed changes and wrote Purcell saying that “the changes destroyed the integrity of the design.” He and George N. Sink, a Little Rock (Pulaski County) architect hired to help bring Amoudeh’s design into reality, met with Purcell and several committee members in mid-May to plead their case. However, when the full committee met on May 21, 1976, Sink said the design would cost $190,000—more than three times the budgeted amount. The committee asked Amoudeh and Sink to scale the project back to cost $75,000, and “the architects were a little disconsolate about it.”

On May 21, 1976, the Bicentennial Committee met to review the architects’ revised design and voted 6–3 that “it would be acceptable to build Arkansas’s Bicentennial monument on the capitol grounds out of pre-cast concrete instead of marble veneer.” But Pryor ultimately rejected Amoudeh’s design as too expensive and asked Sink to “design an alternative or two.”

Sink presented a new design, which the committee approved in late September 1976. Instead of being located southeast of the capitol at West 7th Street and Woodlane Street as originally envisioned, it would go on the grassy plaza north of the building. The Liberty Bell replica “would be placed in the center of an open square with corner columns rising 12 ½ feet. Each side of the square would be 19 feet long. A conventional roof would be constructed that would keep the bell dry during all but blowing rains.”

Ground was finally broken for the project on November 18, 1976, with Capitol Construction Company of North Little Rock as contractor. The memorial had a project cost of $56,378 paid for by the Bicentennial Committee, the Secretary of State’s Office, and “a special appropriation from the legislature.” In early July 1977, the Liberty Bell replica was moved from its longtime location in the capitol rotunda to the memorial; the Arkansas Democrat noted that the “doors on the east entrance to the capitol had to be dismantled to get it out of the building.” The Arkansas Gazette, which had never supported the project, editorialized on July 18, 1977, about “that squat little temple being built at the north end of the State Capitol…a monument to bad planning.”

The Arkansas Bicentennial Memorial was dedicated on August 4, 1977, with a ceremony attended by about 150 people, “mostly legislators and state officials,” and consisting of “prayers, speeches and music by the Senior Citizens Band” of Hot Springs (Garland County).

For additional information:
“2,000 Missouri Pacific Workers to See Parade.” Arkansas Democrat, June 28, 1950, p. 22.

Arkansas State Capitol Self-Guided Grounds Tour. Arkansas Secretary of State’s Office. https://www.sos.arkansas.gov/uploads/2025_grounds_tour.pdf (accessed September 1, 2026).

“Almost Ready to Ring.” Arkansas Democrat, July 7, 1977, p. 7A.

“Bicentennial Memorial Dedicated.” Arkansas Gazette, August 5, 1977, p. 8A.

“Bicentennial Memorial Designs Proposed.” Arkansas Democrat, February 8, 1976, p. 16A.

“Bicentennial Officials Yielding to Designer of Capitol Memorial.” Arkansas Gazette, April 15, 1976, p. 20A.

“Big Bell to Ring on Mount Today.” Arkansas Gazette, May 24, 1961, p. 9B.

“Bond Drive Dates Set.” Arkansas Democrat, February 26, 1950, p. 8B.

Breed, Allen G. “Far from the Original in Philadelphia, These Fans Hunt for the Liberty Bell Replica in Each State.” Associated Press, April 29, 2026. https://apnews.com/article/liberty-bell-replicas-america-250-8161316db7869ba83d61e616960eeb2d (accessed September 1, 2026).

“Concrete to Substitute for Marble in Plan for Bicentennial Monument.” Arkansas Gazette, May 21, 1976, p. 23A.

Davidson, Carter L. “Forty-nine Liberty Bells to Herald 1950 Bond Campaign.” Arkansas Gazette, May 7, 1950, 5B.

“Dedicated.” Arkansas Democrat, August 5, 1977, p. 13A.

“Design for Bicentennial Memorial Too Big, Costly, Pryor Concludes.” Arkansas Gazette, August 4, 1976, p. 14A.

“Design, Appropriation of $60,000 Approved for Liberty Bell Monument.” Arkansas Gazette, February 22, 1976, p. 22A.

“Fordyce.” Arkansas Gazette, June 11, 1950, p. 13A.

Green, William. “$96,783 Set for Bicentennial; Capitol Replica Action Delayed.” Arkansas Gazette, September 15, 1975, p. 2A.

“Liberty Bell Bond Campaign Plans Mapped.” Arkansas Democrat, April 13, 1950, p. 15.

“Liberty Bell Replica Presented to State.” Arkansas Democrat, June 26, 1950, p. 16.

“Messing up the Capitol.” Arkansas Gazette, July 18, 1977, p. 14A.

“Monument under Construction.” Arkansas Gazette, December 3, 1976, p. 36A.

Central Arkansas Library System. “Monumental History: The Story of Arkansas’s Replica Liberty Bell.” Legacies & Lunch. YouTube, August 12, 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8FBF-5IKAk (accessed September 1, 2026). [see Related Web Video in sidebar]

“Old Fashioned Fourth.” Arkansas Gazette, July 6, 1950, p. 4A.

“Osceola.” Arkansas Gazette, June 18, 1950, p. 14A.

“Ozark.” Arkansas Democrat, June 4, 1950, p. 4.

“Panel Approves Smaller Design for Memorial.” Arkansas Gazette, September 22, 1976, p. 1B.

“Patient Fails in Try to Crash Conference.” Arkansas Democrat, September 1, 1973, p. 5A.

“Plans for Memorial to Bicentennial Hit Snag; Costs Run High.” Arkansas Gazette, April 22, 1976, p. 1B.

“Rally Planned.” Arkansas Democrat, June 18, 1950, p. 4.

“State Capitol Ceremony Launches the Bicentennial.” Arkansas Democrat, May 14, 1974, p. 3A.

“Student Mural for Rotunda Discussed.” Arkansas Gazette, July 7, 1950, p. 26.

“Vet Rings Liberty Bell.” Arkansas Democrat, June 1, 1950, p. 17.

“Yell County Nearly Doubles Bond Quota.” Arkansas Gazette, June 11, 1950, p.10A.

Mark K. Christ
Little Rock, Arkansas