Sparta High School - Bulldog Yearbook (Sparta, IL)

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The Best of Old Traditions Have a Way of Coming Back DAR Monument Revolutionary War dead from Randolph County are listed on the monument in front of Sparta High School. Pre- sented in 1934 by the Daughters of the Ameri- can Revolution, the pla- que remembers the men who received little rec- ognition for giving all of America its freedom. The Liberty Bell of the West Eleven years older than the Liberty Bell, the Liberty Bell of the West was cast in 1741 at La Rochelle, France. The bell, brought across the Atlantic Ocean to New Orleans, was placed on a barge and pulled by men walking along the shore to Old Kaskaskia. On its arrival two years later Louis S. Buate, a friend of King Louis XV, presented the bell to the Church of the Imma- culate Conception as a gift in the King’s name. The bell hung in the church until 1890. While moving the bell to its new shrine in 1948, a crack, until this time undetected, was discovered. In the flood of 1973 the Bell, perhaps symbolic of America's stead- fastness, remained unmoved in its shrine.

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The Covered Bridge The covered bridge, north of Chester on Route 4, is one of the few of its kind remaining in the United States. A reminder of our past when horse and buggies were still a pan of ev- eryday life, the bridge, planked on a toll road between Chester and Bremen, has been pre- served with the original timber used in 1854. .• The Home of Pierre Menard The home of Illinois’ first lieutenant governor, Pierre Menard, was built out of wooden pegs by slave labor in 1802 in the French Provincial style. The house considered a mansion in k its day was built along the bank of the Kaskaskia River near Chester. Today, due to change of the river's course during the flood on the night of April 18, 1881, the house is now located on the bank of the Mississippi River. Since he was a Canadian, a special act of Congress allowed Menard to take office. Congress may have granted this permission because of his reputation. Although he was prosperous, he was friendly to everyone: the v Indian, the voyager, the fur trader, the rich and the poor.

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Mary’ River Covered Bridge near Chester. Charter Oak eight-sided school near Walsh.