Local city information for Liberty, MO

Liberty is a city in Clay County, Missouri and is a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. At the 2000 census the city population was 26,232. It is the county seat of Clay County.
Liberty is also home to William Jewell College.


Liberty was settled in 1822, and shortly later became the county seat of Clay County.

In 1830, David Rice Atchison established a law office in Liberty. He was joined three years later by colleague Alexander William Doniphan. The two argued cases defending the rights of Mormon settlers in Jackson County, served Northwest Missouri in Missouri's General Assembly, and labored for the addition of the Platte Purchase to Missouri's boundaries. In October 1838, the two were ordered by Governor Lilburn Boggs to arrest Mormon prophet Joseph Smith Jr. at the Far West settlement in Caldwell County. Immediately after the conclusion of the Mormon War, Smith and other Mormon leaders were incarcerated at the Liberty Jail for the winter as Doniphan labored for a quicker trial date. Although Doniphan led a force of Missouri volunteers ordered to capture the leaders, he defended Joseph Smith in trial and won him a change in venue. While en route to their new venue, Smith and his followers escaped and left Missouri for the new Mormon settlement in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Atchison relocated to Plattsburg in Clinton County, as Doniphan continued to make his name in Liberty. Doniphan would join a company of Clay County men and command the 1st Missouri Mounted Volunteers Regiment during the Mexican-American War. The wartime fervor was covered by the Liberty Tribune, founded in April 1846.

In 1849, Liberty became the home of William Jewell College.

During the Civil War, sympathies for the Confederacy were prevalent in Liberty. In the 1860 Presidential Election, no votes in Clay County went to Abraham Lincoln.

A few days after the firing on Fort Sumter a Confederate mob seized the Liberty Arsenal disrupting Missouri's plans to remain with the Union but neutral. The seizure, which was the first skirmish in the state during the war, eventually led to the eviction of Missouri's elected governor and has sometimes been called "Missouri's Fort Sumter"

In September 1861, in the Battle of Liberty Union troops unsuccessfully attempted to stop Confederate sympathizers led by Atchison from crossing the Missouri River to reinforce Confederate position in the Battle of Lexington I. There were 126 casualties. The Union army used William Jewell College as a hospital and buried their dead on campus.

Liberty was to also see action in the August 1862 siege of Independence.

Southern sentiment remained in the city long after the Civil War—city hall reportedly refused to fly the United States Flag until the start of World War I.

Liberty was the site of the first daytime bank robbery in the United States during peacetime, on February 13, 1866 at the Clay County Savings Association. The gang led by Jesse James was purportedly responsible for the robbery and death of one William Jewell student.

Education opportunities blossomed in the latter half of the 19th century. Liberty High School was chartered in 1890, the county's oldest four-year institution. Liberty Ladies College opened on a hill due west of Jewell that same year. The school burned down in 1913, resulting in its merger with Jewell. Liberty also housed many privately owned boarding schools. At one operated by Professor Love, a complacent student named Carrie Nation was driven to tears when she was unable to formulate an argument for a class debate concerning animal sentience.

Also in 1913, Liberty was connected to Kansas City by way of the Interurban rail system. Transportation links between the growing metropolis and Liberty increased with the addition of State Route 10 in 1922 and its conversion to U.S. Route 69 in 1926. The electric railway ceased operations in 1933. The addition of Interstate 35 in the 1960s along portions of US 69 brought new expansion to Liberty, creating car-filled suburban neighborhoods oriented toward Kansas City.

William Jewell was the NFL Training Camp for the Kansas City Chiefs until 1991.

On May 4, 2003, a "high end" F2 tornado that was part of the May 2003 tornado outbreak sequence struck the downtown and William Jewell campus heavily damaging numerous buildings. Although damage is estimated at between $15 and $20 million, nobody at the school was killed or injured. Classes resumed in the fall.

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