BELLE — A section of glass window rows inside Bob’s Frozen Custard has been transformed into a visual snapshot of Belle’s recent history, thanks to owner Seth Klein, who also serves on Belle’s Board of Aldermen.

Klein recently repurposed a window area inside the coffee shop to display clipped newspaper articles highlighting local people, schools and community events. What was once plain glass is now filled with framed headlines dating from 2017 to the present.

“We had glass here looking for something different to do,” Klein said. “It just kind of came to me to represent the town and display stuff from a little bit of the past.”

The display features 15 individual glass panels, each holding multiple newspaper clippings or full pages. The articles reflect a wide range of local topics, including school achievements, FFA activities, sports, community projects and significant regional events.

“They range from 2017 on up, so they’re kind of a little bit all over the place,” Klein said. “But it was there to mark not only what the students and the school does, but stuff that has gone on, and you know, that the town has done.”

Among the clippings are stories some residents may have forgotten, such as coverage related to the Kansas wildfires, along with articles about Belle’s trail development and updates involving the custard shop building itself.

“I wanted to make sure we had that in there,” Klein said. “We try to do a little bit of everything.”

The project was months in the making. Klein removed the original glass, had new panes cut and then sorted through years of old newspapers to select and clip each article or pull each page.

“I’ve been working on it for over three months, probably actually longer than that,” he said. “It just took a long time.”

Although the display has only been installed for about a week, Klein said it is already serving its purpose by giving visitors a glimpse into Belle’s story.

“Uniqueness like this really brings in that hometown atmosphere, especially when you get people coming from other towns,” he said. “They don’t really read our paper. But if they come in here, they could sit down, glance over it and kind of just see some of the history.”

Klein said the window display may be expanded in the future with framed photographs and additional historical material along the hallway inside the business.

“We’ve talked about finding some picture frames to hang some other stuff on the walls, whether it’s old pictures of town, different stories, stuff like that,” he said.

Despite Bob’s Custard having received statewide recognition in recent years, including winning Missouri Magazine’s Missouri’s Best Award for frozen custard three years in a row, Klein intentionally chose not to include articles highlighting those achievements.

“It’s about the community,” he said. “I wanted to do this focused on the town and the citizens, not necessarily on us.”

Klein said residents who have old newspapers or historic photos they believe would be appropriate for display are welcome to bring them by, as the project is intended to reflect Belle’s shared history.