To mark the Fourth of July holiday and the 250th birthday of the United States, author Edward Segal shared the following excerpt from his 2024 book, "Whistle-Stop Politics," about the Liberty Bell's four whistle-stop-style train tours across the country.

"The Liberty Bell—yes, the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia—went on a cross-country whistle-stop trip to the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. 

"The 1859 Oregon's Magazine noted that 'the Liberty Bell Special was a custom-designed, seven-car Pullman train. Its sixth car, built with heavy-duty shock absorbers, carried the cracked bell, which hung from heavy oak beams, under a copper canopy. At night, a generator lit the bell so people could see it as its train rushed through the dark.'

"This was not the bell's first trip, 

"Fred Klein wrote in an article on the website TrainWeb.org: In 1885 it travelled by rail to the Independence Exposition in New Orleans. Then, in 1893 it went to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago. Two years later the people in Atlanta examined the bell at the Cotton States Exposition. 

"The bell attracted huge crowds wherever it went. Additional cracking occurred and pieces were chipped away by souvenir hunters. In January 1902, the city of Charleston, South Carolina, was to be the host for the South Carolina Inter-State and West Indian Exposition. 

"That 1902 trip had a smaller train than the 1915 train, with two baggage cars, two Pullman-owned  cars, and a flat car on the rear. A three-foot high nickel-plated guardrail was installed around the edge. The level of the floor on which the bell and its frame sat was the same as the rear platform of the observation car that it followed. 

"Because of worries about future cracking and souvenir hunters, the bell did not travel from Philadelphia again."

Learn more about Segal's book at WhistleStopPolitics.com.

Segal is one of the few people to organize a modern-day whistle-stop campaign train tour.

He served as a campaign manager, press secretary, and aide to Democratic and Republican presidential and congressional candidates. He has written about the history of the trains for the Washington Post, Roll Call, Washington Journalism Review, and the American Political Items Collectors.

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