History of Liberty

The town of Liberty, despite the fact that it has been reconstructed in recent years by a dedicated and unusual artist named Mr. Thumb, has a long history that begins sometime in the 1930’s. Liberty was founded in the year 1933, and what started out as a very small and uneventful city soon began to boom during the Worldwide Lawn Gnome rush of the 1940’s.

Trends in popularity, one of human natures stranger phenomena, made lawn gnomes the next greatest thing after sliced bread. Gnomes were sweeping the nation, and as such artists all over the world found themselves in a desperate shortage of good clay for making realistic gnomes. Liberty, Utah was known for its wonderfully natural earthy clay deposits, and became the epicenter of the world as far gnomes are concerned. Artists from all over the world congregated at Liberty hoping to get a lucky break and earn a name for themselves in the highly competitive world of garden gnomes.

Naturally there were those who saw that these garden gnomes had a lot more potential than simply making ones lawn interesting and trendy. Bass Thumbkin, one of the ancestors of Mr. Thumb, was the mayor of the town who became obsessed with garden gnomes. He believed that because the gnomes had been made with clay blessed by the Native American spiritual leaders that they had inherited what Bass called ‘Mana,’ or a small bit of life force. He believed that they were alive.

No one listened to Bass of course, but instead of giving in to the taunting laughter and sinking slowly into insanity, he decided to prove to the world that garden gnomes could actually be alive… Letting his theory drop from the grid, Bass wove himself into the political fabric of Liberty Government and soon was elected mayor of the city. Finding that he was in a position of greater power and authority he decided to press his advantage and spend more time proving his theory that lawn gnomes were actually alive. Using the fund of the government, Bass created his own sort of secret laboratory underneath city hall and there conducted his twisted experiments.

Lawn gnomes all over the city began to disappear and the fame of The Gnome Thief soon spread over all of North and South America. Years went by and the Mayor’s popularity thrived amongst the citizens of liberty for he had sworn that he would capture The Gnome Thief.

A secretary of the Mayor, however, grew suspicious. She noticed in the Mayor’s files that a large sum of money was missing every year from the city’s budget, and so she began to investigate. Snooping in places where she probably ought not to have snooped, she began opening mysterious crates that would arrive at the mayor’s office labeled as office supplies. Of course what she found in the crates were clearly not for a conventional office. She discovered that the mayor was actually ordering flasks and bottles, and strange chemicals. Some of the chemicals were even nuclear.

By the time the Secretary got the police involved it was too late. Mayor Thumbkin had already achieved his goal. He had tried for so long to enhance the life force of the gnomes. His plan was simple, to use his own body as a catalyst through which the life force could flow from him and into the gnome. He believed that if he did this, that the gnomes would finally come to life and the scientific community that had laughed him into oblivion would finally be cast down. This plan however also involved injecting himself with the before mentioned nuclear chemicals. A small price to pay he believed for satisfying his lifelong obsession.

The police burst in on Thumbkin just as he was about to conduct his experiment. The energy was so intense as if radiated from the mayor’s frame that the police all shielded their eyes. An explosion resulted that was felt all the way in California; the government has long tried to conceal this tremor as the Imperial Valley Earthquake which was felt in California in 1940.

The blast unfortunately destroyed the small town of Liberty and the popularity of lawn gnomes slowly declined in the United States. Investigators who discovered the remains of the town were shocked to find at the epicenter of the explosion several lawn gnomes all dressed in police uniforms and one gnome dressed like mayor Thumbkin…