Mound City - 100 Years - Mound City, IL
Posted by: YoSam.
N 37° 05.024 W 089° 09.883
16S E 307590 N 4106353
This Civil War bell and time capsule commemorate the anniversary.
Waymark Code: WMVCEX
Location: Illinois, United States
Date Posted: 04/01/2017
Views: 0
County of marker: Pulaski County
Location of marker: Park St. & Walnut St., city park, Mound City
Marker erected: 1954
Marker erected by: Mound City Woman's Club
Plaque Text:
THE OLD FIRE BELL
This pedestal commemorates the Mound City Centennial celebration of 1954. Sealed inside are Historical documents and a story of the bell that rests upon it. The bell, a war trophy, was used as lead-off bell for the Mississippi Squadron stationed here at Marine Ways during the Civil War.
Dedicated by the Mound City Woman's Club this 26th day of June 1954. To the Citizens of Mound City 100 years hence, who are requested to open it on the City's 200th Anniversary.
1854------------1954-------------2054
"Mound City was incorporated in 1857 as a union of two cities; Mound City, founded by Major General Moses Marshal Rawlings, and Emporium City, a project of the Emporium Real Estate and Manufacturing Company, a group of Cincinnati and Cairo businessmen. The city took its name from a Native American mound on which guests at General Rawlings' hotel would sleep in summer, as the breezes cooled them and dispersed the mosquitoes.
"The USS Cairo was built in 1861 by James Eads and Co., Mound City, Illinois, under contract to the United States Department of War. She was commissioned as part of the Union Army's Western Gunboat Flotilla, U.S. Navy Lieutenant James M. Prichett in command. She was a City-class ironclad gunboat constructed for the Union Navy during the American Civil War. She was the lead ship of the City-class gunboats, sometimes also called the Cairo class, and was named for Cairo, Illinois." ~ Wikipedia