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What Fulton is known for
Fulton is a Missouri college town of 12,600 people at the 2020 census. It is known for Winston Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech at Westminster College on March 5, 1946, and for the bombed London church that Fulton later rebuilt, stone by stone, as his memorial.
A county with two stories it does not tell together
Callaway County is named for Captain James Callaway, killed in battle with Native Americans near Loutre Creek in March 1815 and honored with a 14 foot bronze in Fulton’s courthouse yard since 1905. The same county markets itself as the Kingdom of Callaway, for an 1861 stand its residents made against Union troops, in a county where enslaved people made up at least 25 percent of the 1860 population. Visitor materials rarely put the two stories side by side.
A speech, then a search for a building
Churchill’s Sinews of Peace address, with its line about an iron curtain descending across the Continent, came at the invitation of Westminster College president Franc McCluer and was introduced by President Truman. In London, the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, redesigned by Christopher Wren in 1677, had been destroyed by fire in the Blitz on December 29, 1940, and its walls stood unrepaired for lack of funds.
Moving a church across the ocean
In 1961 a Life magazine feature, The Realm of Christopher Wren, sparked the idea, and architects Emmett Layton, Ruth Layton and Patrick Horsbrugh planned its move to Westminster College. Securing British approvals took four years and required $1.5 million, while former Missouri governor John M. Dalton chaired the local fundraising committee and four presidents, Kennedy, Johnson, Eisenhower and Truman, chaired the national fundraising campaign. From 1965 all 7,000 stones were cleaned, catalogued and shipped as free ballast to Virginia. Craftsmen including English woodcarver Arthur Ayres and a Dutch bell foundry rebuilt the interior, and the church was rededicated on May 7, 1969.
What it is today
In 2009 Congress recognized the site as America’s permanent tribute to Winston Churchill, now America’s National Churchill Museum. Adult admission is $16, and Congress is weighing whether to name the museum a National Historic Landmark. Fulton is also home to the Missouri School for the Deaf, a heritage its Churchill centered marketing rarely mentions.
Questions people ask about Fulton
Why did Fulton, Missouri get a Churchill museum?
Winston Churchill delivered his Iron Curtain speech at Westminster College in Fulton on March 5, 1946. Fulton later rebuilt a London church bombed in the Blitz on its campus as a permanent memorial to that speech.
How did a London church end up in Fulton, Missouri?
St Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury, a Christopher Wren church destroyed in the Blitz, was dismantled stone by stone from 1965. More than 7,000 catalogued stones crossed the Atlantic as free ballast before being rebuilt in Fulton and rededicated in 1969.
Who paid to move the church to Fulton?
Former Missouri governor John M. Dalton chaired the local fundraising committee, while four American presidents, Kennedy, Johnson, Eisenhower and Truman, chaired the campaign's national fundraising effort.
What else is Fulton, Missouri known for?
Fulton is also home to the Missouri School for the Deaf and to Callaway County's Kingdom of Callaway story, an 1861 stand against Union troops in a county where at least a quarter of the 1860 population was enslaved.