There is a new — and old — UMKC tradition ringing in this school year.
The historic bell now standing along the University Walkway may seem like a new addition to campus, but its story stretches back nearly 150 years. Before arriving at UMKC in the 1930s, the bell traveled the Ohio and Missouri rivers, survived a shipwreck and spent decades marking the rhythm of university life.
Now restored to a place of prominence on campus, it has plenty of stories to tell.
It got its start on riverboats.
Long before it rang across the UMKC campus, the bell traveled America’s rivers. It was originally aboard a riverboat called the Warsaw, which made runs on the Ohio River. It later moved to the Jo Horton Fall, renamed the Valley Queen when the boat transferred to the Missouri River, carrying freight and passengers between Kansas City and Omaha. The bell also spent time aboard a tugboat at the Kansas City river wharf.
It survived a shipwreck.
In May 1934, the Valley Queen struck a snag — a fallen tree or other wooden debris lodged in the riverbank — and sank. All passengers and crew escaped safely.
The bell was among the items salvaged from the wreck and purchased by Howard P. Treadway, a founding trustee of the then-University of Kansas City. He later donated it to the university, where it was installed in the tower of the liberal arts building, now Haag Hall.
It once signaled the start of classes.
For 15 years, the bell rang multiple times a day over the Volker Campus to mark the beginning of classes. But its role extended well beyond the daily schedule.
Students raced to the tower to ring it when Clarence Decker was announced as the university’s new president. It also rang to mark visits by U.S. presidents and international dignitaries, including President Harry Truman, Mexican President Miguel Alemán and a prime minister of Pakistan. And when Treadway died in 1939, the bell rang in his honor.
It fell silent for decades.
As UMKC grew and class schedules became more varied, ringing a bell to signal the start of classes no longer made sense. The bell made a special return for the university’s 50th anniversary, but after that, it remained silent for more than 40 years.
It went “missing” for a while.
After decades of silence, UMKC Campus Facilities believed the bell had been removed when air conditioning was installed in Haag Hall in the 1990s.
Then came 2020. When campus closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, campus historian Chris Wolff, who also manages the UMKC Bookstore, decided to solve the mystery. Air-conditioning ducts blocked access to the tower, but from the roof, he spotted it: The bell was still there, in its original UMKC home.
Campus Facilities Director Robbie Wren worked to restore the bell in the tower before it was eventually moved to its new home along the University Walkway, near Swinney Recreation Center. And this August, after a long silence, the bell rang once again, this time to welcome a new generation of Roos at Convocation.
A nearly 150-year journey from riverboat to shipwreck to university landmark has come full circle. And that’s a UMKC tradition that’s music to our ears.