I was a member of the Cole County 250 Committee that was convened to celebrate the nation’s birthday. Fifty years ago (have trouble being comfortable with starting a sentence about something I’ve done with such a phrase—I find it easier to say, “In 1976….”) I was Secretary of the Jefferson City American Revolution Bicentennial Committee.
My role with the CC250 commission was minimal compared to the work done by our leaders who worked tirelessly to make sure every community in the County was involved. At the end, we four survivors of he JCARBC couldn’t help but compare this celebration to the one we pulled off in 1976.
In 1976, we had a national ARBC that funded projects and programs and events and helped develop and coordinate events in each state. We hosted a statewide conference for local Bicentennial events. We opened a little store that sold tickets to our attractions (the main one being the American Freedom Train’s visit) or sold Bicentennial flags of varying sizes and mementoes, and publicized the events we coordinated locally. On July 4th weekend, we had a big blowout downtown on Saturday and Sunday, concluding with the first major fireworks show at the Capitol—establishing an event that has been done every year since.
Restoration of Lohman’s Landing, one of the few surviving steamboat commerce sites still in use along the Missouri River, was a state-designated a state American Revolution Bicentennial Project. We installed a time capsule there.
Our Cole County group this year was led by people connected with the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution but included several others. We have planted trees in Cole County communities that we hope will grow tall and strong and beautiful, symbolizing our nation’s growth by the time the 300th anniversary comes alone. We have done programs about the American Revolution at our library. We sponsored a poster contest for our school children with the winning poster going to a national competition.
Saturday, July 4, we had booths on the Avenue of History—Madison Street in front of the Governor’s Mansion—-that included local historical and civics organization until storm clouds gathered and we decided to bail out. The high winds that struck our area were not something we wanted to deal with.
The city had a parade and a fireworks display—-at the Capitol—when the storm had passed.
I’m proud of the work CC250 did. The city, the county, and the state might have done more had the same kind of commitment been seen from the national commission formed to celebrate the anniversary.
Congress created the United States Semi Quincentennial Commission in 2016. It was to be like the 1976 commission—bipartisan and nonpartisan. It was given a $150 million budget to coordinate the nationwide celebration. There even were plans to pull one of the three locomotives used in the 1976 Freedom Train away from a museum in Baltimore, restore it, and use it for a 2026 Freedom Train.
The legislature in 2022 established The America 250 Missouri Commission to “plan, promote, and implement public celebrations and commemorations of the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Intendance. The next year the legislature authorized the state commission to coordinate with the federal commission as well as other state and local programs for the occasion.
Then came Donald Trump.
He established the White House Task Force on “Celebrating America’s 250th Birthday. It was to organize events in Washington, D.C. while the America 250 was left in charge of coordinating national events. But by the middle of this year, the America 250 Commission had received only about $25 million of the $150 million originally approved by Congress.
While funding dried up for the Congressionally-approved commission, Trump’s task force was getting $68 million in taxpayer money from the Department of the Interior run by Trump appointee Doug Burgum.
In April, the American Freedom Train Foundation 250 announced there would be no national train tour for this anniversary.
Its news release did not directly blame Trump while saying, “Coming out of the tumultuous period at the start of this decade, planning for the Quarter-Millennial was behind schedule in relation to planning for the spirited Bicentennial. In an effort to honor America’s history and heroes, Ross Rowland, the visionary behind the 1975-76 Bicentennial version of the American Freedom Train, sought to get the train back on the tracks for the Quarter-Millennial celebrations. Following Ross’s unexpected passing in June 2025, others stepped up and worked to realize his goal.”
… The team was unable to secure the necessary operating agreements with railroads, and there was insufficient interest on the part of corporate America in sponsoring the train. These challenges, in combination with the tight timelines involved, proved to be insurmountable.”
The kind of national celebration of the anniversary we had in 1976 was replaced by the Trump show on the Mall in Washington that did not come close to the hype and the expenditures the president trumpeted. His speech was hardly inspirational and as usual was delivered as if he were seeing the copy for the first time.
And so our nation’s 250th birthday fizzled despite the record amount spent on fireworks over the mall (which left the damaged reflecting pool littered with trash and fireworks debris and caused enough severe air problems that several people went to the hospital).
We did well in Cole County by way of honoring the 250th anniversary. It was dignified and it left behind a series of trees to remind our descendants that some people sought more than the self-indulgent events on the National Mall that had less to do with the Declaration of Independence than it did for a president’s ego. But for some of us—and I want to emphasize that am not demeaning the things this year’s committee accomplished—a spark was missing.
Friday, we turn to a report revealing whole stole it and what might happen next.
But tomorrow we have a special message