Congratulations to James Noel, whose submission was randomly selected to receive a $100 Downtown Liberty gift card. Thank you to everyone who participated and helped us celebrate the stories that connect generations to Historic Downtown Liberty.

Seeing different vendors over the years at the Farmers’ Market and meeting Matt Stewart almost 2 years ago, and this year.

Events during Autumn On the Square make up my favorite memories of Downtown Liberty, especially those during the Fall Fest, the Farmer’s Market and Trick or Treat On the Square. I love the close community feel of these events, as well as the sights, sounds and smells of the season all displayed around some of our favorite small businesses. This photo features a captured moment of my younger daughter and our dog enjoying the beautiful decorations at the annual Pumpkin Festival in 2024.

If ever a business was the center of its community, By the Book Bookstore and Coffee Bar was it! Owned by Chris and Ellen Todd, it operated at 4 N. Main Street from 1998 until 2008.  I had the good fortune to work there for nine years. By the Book was everything you’d expect a FICTIONAL bookstore to be –  welcoming, comfortable; a place to enjoy a great selection of coffee, baked goods, books of all genres, both new and used; a place where you were never rushed – but it was REAL!  It was a place where one could spend half a day and many did, including Liberty personalities, Dr. Harvey Thomas and Mr. Bill Riggs, who frequently occupied one of the loft tables with cranberry nut muffins, steaming mugs and the daily Kansas City Star crossword puzzle.  A familiar sight was often Chris’ father-in-law, Ray Brock Jr., an accomplished businessman and pillar of the Liberty/Kansas City community, sweeping the entrance to the bookstore, greeting everyone he met.

We had midnight Harry Potter release parties, and book signings with local authors. Most memorable were KC Star journalist, Charles Gusewelle, The Rufus Chronicle: Another Autumn (among others) and Liberty Tribune columnist, Sue Wright, The Christmas Path: A Legend of the Luminaries, with a cookout at the Todd’s home after some of these featured events.   Moms got a much needed break, gathering to sip lattes amidst conversation, while their kids let their imaginations soar in the magical pages of a storybook in the Children’s Nook. By the Book was a place to get away from your cares; meet friends or just spend time alone  immersed in a good book. Time could stand still for a little while.

The Square was a village unto itself then, with everybody looking out for each other and pitching in to help it run smoothly.  We got up on ladders to adorn the buildings with Christmas lights and dressed in costumes to hand out Halloween candy long before there was a downtown association to guide us. Allan Murray, owner of Town & Country Flowers, also on Main St., brought over vases of fresh flowers for our downstairs tables weekly, and in turn, ordered all his books from Chris.  No tab was ever kept, it was just a fair exchange of one man’s goods for the other’s. Downtown business owner, Don Altis, shoveled the Main Street sidewalks when it snowed and then came in out of the cold for a free cup of coffee.

It was one of those rare jobs that I knew, even then, how special it was. It is fiercely important to me still and I will never forget the sense of belonging to this embracing Liberty Square family and the friends I made there who remain to this day.

Memories of Liberty Downtown 1962: I came to Liberty from Raytown Missouri to attend William Jewell College in 1962, a trip that could be made from my hometown to the Liberty Square without stopping at a single traffic light. There just weren’t any in those days as you drove 71 by-pass to Jewell. Raytown was a town without a square so finding one within walking distance from the college was not only enchanting to me but a godsend. Few co-eds had cars in those days, which made downtown Liberty the go-to place for all the everyday essentials a girl could haul up The Hill and into her room in a few bags. It just happened that my Aunt Maurine Konrad was one of the directors of the Clay County Election Board which was housed at the time down a steep flight of stairs barely off Kansas. Equally convenient for stopping by my aunt for a chat were my longing stares into the window of the Lucille Davis dress shop which stood directly across the street from the Election Board. My aunt loved having me so close and often rewarded my visits with money to buy something at the dress shop. I remember most a trench coat purchased on Aunt Maurine’s penny. My only other coat on campus until then was the raccoon-collared one that was all the rage that year. For sure, I can’t recall all of the businesses that graced downtown Liberty in those salad days of mine, but I do fondly remember these: Mr. Scott’s dime store, Boggess Hardware, Bortko Fabrics, Bedingers Furniture, Whiteside Jewelry, Brants, a couple of banks, Breipohl’s Pharmacy, Beggs Drug Store, two shoe repair shops, a laundromat, the Bank Vault gift shop, and Fishers Flowers. Beggs soda fountain served sundaes in fluted glasses accompanied by cute little spoons. What a treat a butterscotch sundae was when you were used to eating the college cafeteria fare. On occasion, my parents would come to Liberty on a Sunday to take me to Miller’s Restaurant situated just off the main drag. Talk about a treat!

I’ve been a business owner on the square for 18 years. Back in 2010, 2011 we put on an event called the Green Fair. We did yoga in the street, it was so fun! This picture is from the first Green Fair, our building still showing its late 70’s look. Good times.

I have so many fond memories of downtown Liberty as I’ve lived in the area all my life! I remember my Mother worked at George Bedinger’s Ethan Allen furniture store. I would visit her and remember the earthy smell of the old building! I absolutely loved it- as my Mother was in the antique business as well and Bedingers’ reminded me of those antique aromas. We also shopped at Lucille Davis Dress Shop and got my shoes at Brant’s when I was little. There was a five and dime store on the corner of Kansas and Main – I can’t remember the name but I do remember saving my allowance to buy some toys or candy! As I got older, I lived in Gladstone, and North Kansas City but Liberty is the best place I’ve lived! I’ve been volunteering for HDLI, Meals on Wheels, AmeriCorps Seniors and Clay County Historical Museum and absolutely love it and all the people involved!

My wife and I love our Liberty Square. She is a 1952 native of Liberty and can tell more stories about Liberty than you can imagine. We have walked around the square, shopped, met friends, ate at the restaurants, driven around it and so much more that it is our go-to place when we are wanting to step outside our Liberty house. We are so fond of it that back in 2010, I decided to make this poster to hang in our home. I look at it often to see how it has changed. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

We didn’t call it “downtown” back then. It was just “town” because Kansas City was “downtown.” One of my favorite memories is going to the Square with my dad before I was even in Kindergarten. He took me to all the places to pay bills, to the post office, and to Begg’s Drug Store for a treat. The best part was going downstairs at Mattingly’s to the toy shop. Another fun memory is singing Christmas songs on the courthouse steps with my Brownie troop. And of course, the Liberty High School Homecoming parades. I loved the brick streets and wish I had a photo of those beautiful streets around the Square.

I lived at the southeast corner of North Missouri and East Mississippi Streets from 1961 until 1977, and during subsequent summers through 1980. Liberty Square was just a couple of blocks away and played a memorable role throughout my childhood and teenage years.

I fondly recall going to Rexall Drugs (Breipohl’s Pharmacy) on North Water Street, where I frequently bought comic books from a round, rotating display near the front door. Archie comics were favorites, along with Vampirella when it was first released.

I also remember an old movie theater on or near the east side of the Square. I once walked there alone to see a movie that gave me nightmares. Looking back, I was probably too young to have been admitted!

Boggess Hardware was another regular stop. It was the kind of old-fashioned hardware store where you could buy nails and screws by weight out of barrels. Years later, I came home from college at the University of Kansas to discover that my parents weren’t home and our house was locked. I walked to Boggess Hardware, looked through the assortment of skeleton keys hanging on the wall and purchased the one that looked most like our house key. It worked, and I was able to get back inside!

On East Kansas Street, I occasionally enjoyed a vanilla milkshake at the fountain in Beggs Drugstore, which was owned by the father of my high school classmate Chuck Beggs.

My favorite place on Liberty Square, however, was Mattingly’s Five and Dime, located at the southeast corner of East Kansas and North Main Streets. I would purchase models of World War II vehicles and other model kits to assemble at home. If I hadn’t saved enough of my allowance, I could put a model on layaway until I had paid for it.

Many years later, my Liberty High School classmate Bob Sanders renovated and operated Restoration 1894 on the upper floor of the building that had once housed Mattingly’s. Bob and his wife, Colleen Neth, hosted two Liberty High School Class of 1977 reunions there.

My father also rented office space for a couple of years upstairs on the opposite, northwest corner of the Square, where he operated a small polling business.

I have fond memories of the Clay County Museum on North Main Street, where I would sometimes spend time looking through the display cases. Another significant location was Liberty Savings, then located at the northwest corner of North Main and West Franklin Streets. I opened my first bank account there and received a silver dollar as a reward.

A little farther from the Square was the Liberty Public Library on East Franklin Street, just a block from my house. I was a voracious reader and checked out many books there until I grew older and began frequenting bookstores. During elementary school, I also took ballet and tap dance lessons for a couple of years in the basement of the library building.

When I first became aware of gasoline prices, I remember a gas station on East Mill Street selling gas for just under 20 cents per gallon.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, my weekday routine included walking to and from Franklin Elementary School on West Mill Street, with its memorable miniature Statue of Liberty out front.

One of my favorite family memories involves an evening when all four members of my family decided to take a bicycle ride together, which was a rare occurrence.

I don’t remember whether we went anywhere else that evening, but we spent a considerable amount of time riding in circles—or perhaps squares—around the Clay County Courthouse. In those days, there was very little traffic around the Square after the businesses closed for the evening, although the area remained well illuminated.

Another vivid memory is Liberty’s celebration of the United States Bicentennial in 1976. It was the only time I remember my father growing a beard, which he did as part of his participation in the celebration.

I participated in a slightly different way: I entered my large leopard slug in an ugliest pet contest held as part of the festivities. I kept and fed the slug—with cat food—in a terrarium and proudly took third place in the contest.

After graduating from Liberty High School in the spring of 1977, I was fortunate to find summer employment with the City of Liberty, working as a secretary for Town Manager Charles “Chuck” Anderson and receiving much of my direction from Ms. Cassidy, whose daughter Tracy was one of my classmates.

The job was especially fortunate because I was recovering from knee surgery and spent eight weeks in a full plaster cast. Unable to drive or perform a job requiring much mobility, I traveled to and from work on crutches while earning money for my university education.

My typing skills, developed in a wonderful Liberty High School class taught by Joyce Bishop, proved invaluable. I worked on an electric typewriter in the days before desktop computers, and the typing skills I strengthened that summer have served me well ever since.

My family’s connection to Liberty also included my father, Will Adams Jr., who was a professor of political science at William Jewell College.

One surviving family photograph captures a memorable moment shortly after we moved to Liberty. In November 1961, our family met Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson during his visit to William Jewell College. My father is holding me, William, then three years old, while my mother, Eleaner, is holding my younger brother, James.

— William W. Adams III