FayWHAT? Where is Fayetteville's Liberty Bell replica?
Bill Kirby Staff writer @WBKirbyJr.
May 5, 2019 at 12:00 PM May 9, 2019 at 3:22 PM
We can't find the replica of the Liberty Bell signed by character actor Ken Curtis of 'Gunsmoke' fame at Eutaw Shopping Center, but we'll keep looking.
Seems like Phil Barnard always has us trying to find something.
First, it was the missing 1976 photographs of Elvis Presley that once were hanging in the Crown Complex arena, and suddenly disappeared.
We found the photos of the king of rock 'n roll, when Presley performed in the arena in August of 1976.
Now Barnard has us investigating again.
"In 1976, our bicentennial year, there was a replica of the Liberty Bell placed in front of Eutaw Shopping Center," he says. "During a stop here for a campaign speech for presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, Ken Curtis — Festus of TV's 'Gunsmoke' — autographed the bell. The bell sat at Eutaw for a year or so. I've spoken with Dr. Frank Stout, owner of Eutaw Shopping Center, about the whereabouts of the bell. He had no recollection of it or what became of it. He guessed it was probably on loan from whoever owned it, and it probably wasn't the property of the shopping center. Does the Observer have any record of Ken Curtis making an appearance here and any idea of what became of that Liberty Bell?"
Well, Mr. Barnard, we've got some good news and some bad news.
First, the good news.
[FROM THE ARCHIVES: Eutaw Shopping Center]
Ronald Reagan, then the former California governor, sure was here in March of 1976 on two occasions in hopes of securing the Republican presidential nomination away from incumbent Gerald Ford. He brought along actor Jimmy Stewart on March 18, according to research by Gaby Kienitz with the Cumberland County Headquarters Library & Information Center, where about 1,000 people greeted Reagan and Stewart at Grannis Field.
Apparently, Ken Curtis, the character actor-extraordinaire, was here March 1 with Reagan, as per a photograph from our newspaper library archives taken by Dick Blount, and both were escorted about town by Jack Lee, the city's mayor at the time and a die-hard Republican himself.
Now for the bad news.
"I know he was a big Reaganite," Tom Lee, 71, says about his father, a radio executive who led the local GOP party after serving as mayor from 1971 to 1975. "And Reagan later appointed him to the presidential or FCC commission."
But Lee, now director of corporate relations for the Arts Council of Fayetteville-Cumberland County, doesn't remember anything about the Liberty Bell replica at Eutaw Shopping Center.
"I don't have the faintest idea," he says, although Lee says he does remember Ken Curtis' character as Festus Haggin on "Gunsmoke," the long-running CBS network western series.
"He always had a scraggly beard," he says, "and looked like he was chewing tobacco."
Here's some more bad news.
"In 1976, I was working undercover narcotics and wasn't paying attention to local news," says Bruce Daws, director of the Fayetteville History Museum. "I have never seen the Liberty Bell. Sorry I couldn't be of any help."
Jack Lee was 94 when he died June 10, 2014, in Farmington, New Mexico.
Ken Curtis, who appeared in the Gunsmoke role for 11 seasons, was 74 when he died April 21, 1991 in Fresno, California.
Frank Stout, owner of the shopping center, confirms that he has no recollection of what may have happened to the bell.
But he offers some hope.
It could, he says, be stored somewhere at the shopping center.
"We're still looking," Stout says. "It may turn up."
If it does, Stout says he'll let us know.
In the parlance, Mr. Barnard, of Festus Haggin.
'Hold 'yer taters."
We may find the old bell one of these days.
Columnist Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at bkirby@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3571.