Dedication ceremony set for Missouri Bicentennial Mural

A crew contracted to perform the installation of Missouri's Bicentennial Mural worked in mid May to get the panels put together to form the large painting that will hang in the Harry S Truman State Office Building cafeteria in Jefferson City. (Julie Smith/News Tribune photo)
A crew contracted to perform the installation of Missouri's Bicentennial Mural worked in mid May to get the panels put together to form the large painting that will hang in the Harry S Truman State Office Building cafeteria in Jefferson City. (Julie Smith/News Tribune photo)

The (unofficial) record-breaking Missouri Bicentennial Mural, painted by more than 16,000 people across the state, will be dedicated Thursday, June 23.

The public dedication ceremony is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. at the Harry S Truman State Office Building, the mural's new home.

A contractor specializing in gallery framing recently installed the 15-panel mural that is 12 feet tall and 30 feet wide inside Harry's Place Cafeteria on the fourth floor of the Truman Building.

Cape Girardeau artists Aaron Horrell and Barb Bailey, who traveled the state for years to create the mural, will be available at the dedication ceremony and Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe is scheduled to attend. Members of the Bicentennial Commission and Jefferson City Mayor Carrie Tergin will also be on hand.

Beth Pike, a spokesperson for the State Historical Society of Missouri, said it will be a fairly informal event with light refreshments. The Historical Society is supplying a cake with the mural on it and plans to document the occasion.

"We'd like to get some group pictures mainly just, kind of, for the record," she said. "So 100 years from now when we're looking back we'll have a photograph of the people involved in that effort."

The mural commemorates Missouri's 200 years of statehood and features 19 state symbols. The artists donated it to the state as a gift to the public.

Approximately 16,116 people painted a piece of the mural, filling in a small triangle with their own distinct flair. Painters came from 358 Missouri towns, 30 states and Washington, D.C., and 17 countries. The oldest painter was 102 years old and the youngest painter, who had help from family, was 12 days old.

"Unofficially, it broke the Guinness Book of World Records, but the artists haven't gone through that complete process with them," Pike said.

The current world record, according to Guinness, was created in 2017 in Qatar after 13,284 people contributed to a painting of the country's leader.

Pike said organizers talked about covering up the mural to have an unveiling, but "it's so massive" and the timing didn't work out.

The mural is displayed in custom frames hanging from a wall in the Truman Building, but those frames allow it to be taken down for travel if it were to be moved, Pike said.

She said there are no plans to move the mural from the Truman Building.

"We're calling that its home," she said.

Pike said it's exciting to put the mural on display after several years of planning and making it.

"There's some history we made, and it's going to be wonderful to have it where other people can see it and the future generations can have access to it," she said. "I think that's really important."

The Missouri Bicentennial Mural can be viewed by the public during regular visitor hours at the Truman Building, which are weekdays from 6:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Pike said she's hopeful schools can experience the mural on trips to the Capitol.

"We really wanted to try to keep it within the Capitol Complex area and because it's so large, so massive, there was no space for it inside the Capitol," she said. "It takes a pretty big wall."