Liberty

History

The area that would eventually become Liberty was being settled by whites as early as 1855. The town itself was founded by early settler David Palmer (1838-1876), who ran a trading post in the area. Palmer drowned in a nearby river and was buried in the Liberty Cemetery. The town also grew from the influx of railroad laborers who built the tracks that went through the village. In its heyday in 1890, Liberty had a population of 469, enough to support three grocery stores, a meat market, a livery, a dry goods store, a hotel, a law office, a hardware store, an undertaker, a lumber yard and barbershops, and its own newspaper, The Liberty Journal. But the money panic of 1893 hit the village particularly hard, and it never recovered from the shock of many farmers selling what they could and leaving town.

Geography

According to the United States Census Bureau, the village has a total area of , all land.

Race & ethnicity