Day 6

St. Joseph, MO – Mt. Vernon, IL

Our route took us right through Liberty, MO. So we made a stop at Liberty Jail.
(I love how Jefferson is holding Reagan!)

Our church reconstructed an exact replica of the jail, in its original location. It was fascinating to see where Joseph Smith was held for 4 months, and where he received revelation from the Lord.
The front entrance of the jail, where Joseph entered and greeted the men with, “good morning gentlemen.”

Joseph and 5 other men were kept below, while the guards stayed above. Some interesting things I didn’t know:
The front door didn’t have a handle, so the guards couldn’t even get out themselves, they had to be ‘let’ out.
There was a space between the exterior and interior walls that was filled with rocks. If the men tried to escape, they would have to pull out rocks, which would make other rocks fall, and alert the guards.
The jail was used as an ice house years later. During the winter ice was taken from the river and stored for up to 1 year in the basement. I can only imagine how cold it must have been for the men in the basement during the winter.

The room was so short that one of the men couldn’t stand up all of the way… his back was forever hunched.

I wish we could have seen more church history sites, but it was ‘back on the road’ for us!

Some things we saw on the road….
  

No jail time huh?… just a fine.

The Gateway Arch… from a distance
  

We made a pit stop at a statue called “The Awakening". It was entertaining, but we didn’t stay long…. it was 104 degrees outside!