Eagle Scout project involves former Linscott race track bell

An old bell that dates back more than 125 years — back to the days of the horse races at the S.K. Lin­scott farm southwest of Holton in the 1890s — is the focal point of a Holton youth’s Eagle Scout project.

After researching the bell and its significance in Holton’s history, Kyle Figge, 14, a member of Holton Boy Scout Troop 64, put together plans to mount the bell in front of the Holton Public Safety Building to earn his Eagle Scout rank. But first, Figge said he needs to raise about $3,000 to $4,000 in order to fund those plans.

A benefit car wash will be held Saturday, July 16 at the Public Safety Building to help fund Figge’s plans to mount the bell — a project he said he would like to get started in mid-August.

Figge said the project’s origins were traced to a telephone call that his father, Craig Figge — who is also the Troop 64 scoutmaster — received from Holton’s fire de­partment about the possible place­ment of some flagpoles.

“He found out there was a bell that the fire department was want­ing to get out of the back of the building,” the younger Figge said. “It was behind one of the fire trucks.”

Last fall, the subject of a possi­ble Eagle Scout project involving the bell came up again, but Craig Figge said that young men in the running for the Eagle Scout rank were busy with other projects. But after it was suggested to Kyle, he approached the fire department board about the bell.

“They said they didn’t know too much about the history of the bell,” said Kyle, who will be a freshman at Holton High School this fall. “I told them I would find out about it.”

It has not been determined whether the bell — crafted in 1889 at the L.M. Rumsey Manufacturing Company in St. Louis, Mo. — was ever used by the fire department, which had a bell tower at its original home on Fifth Street where Holton’s parks and recreation office is now.

“The only two spots that I could think of were the Linscott race track and the old fire department,” Kyle Figge said.

That race track was located southwest of Holton at what was known as Hickory Hill Farm, owned by early Holton settler S.K. Linscott. It was reported that the race track was active at Hickory Hill throughout the 1890s; county fairs were held at the farm as well.

However, according to a Holton Recorder article that appeared in November of 1985 and was shared with the Figges, a few weeks after the bell was discovered, city offi­cials said they were “uncertain where it came from and and would welcome information local people have as to the bell’s history.”

A month later, in December of 1985, The Recorder printed a letter from Irene Linscott Gigstad of Effingham stating that the bell was purchased in the 1880s by her grandfather, Shepard Keene Lin­scott, for use at the race track. Lin­scott, it was reported, owned race horses and had originally built the track to train them.

“The bell was located near the judges’ stand, and when a race was not started properly, there would be a clap of the bell and the race was started over again,” Gigstad said.

Gigstad’s cousin, John Linscott, also wrote The Recorder that month to confirm Gigstad’s ac­count of the bell, adding that the races and the county fair were held at the Linscott farm until about the turn of the century. The race track was discontinued and the bell stored in a barn until it was moved to a newer barn that had stood at Linscott Park.

“The bell was moved to the new barn and was forgotten by the fam­ily. I don’t understand why it was not found before now,” John Lin­scott, who was then the oldest liv­ing descendant of S.K. Linscott, wrote in 1985.

Thirty years later, after a repre­sentative of the Jackson County Historical Museum shared copies of the photo and letters from the 1985 Recorders with him, Kyle Figge put together plans to do something with the bell after fire department officials said they wanted to find a new home for it. Fire board leaders were receptive to Figge’s plans, even after learning of the bell’s history with the Lin­scott family.

“They were quite surprised,” he said. “But they’re still approving the plan to put it in front of the fire department.”

Figge crafted a plan for a three-foot high brick monument for mounting the bell, similar to an­other bell mount that can be found at Evangel United Methodist Church in Holton. The difference between Figge’s planned bell mount and the bell mount at EUM, he said, is that the new mount will have an entirely concrete top.

“The reason for this is that I want this bell to stay there for at least 150 years or more,” he said. “The only way it’s going to be moved is by heavy machinery. And I don’t want a brick top to col­lapse.”

The bell mount will be placed near the front of the Public Safety Building, but not directly in front of it, Figge said, so that signage on the front of the building will not be obscured. Plans also include the placement of flag poles on either side of the mount, he added.

The fund-raising car wash will be held from 8 a.m. to about 2 p.m. Saturday on the east side of the Public Safety Building, he said. Free-will donations will be accepted for the car wash.