 Palmer drowned in a nearby river and was buried in the Liberty Cemetery.The town also grew from the influx of railroad laborers who built the tracks that went through the village.In its heyday in 1890, Liberty had a population of 469, enough to support three grocery stores, a meat market, a livery, a dry goods store, a hotel, a law office, a hardware store, an undertaker, a lumber yard and barbershops, and its own newspaper, "The Liberty Journal".