This historical review traces the origins of the Kimball free-cloud model of the chemical bond, otherwise known as the charge-cloud or tangent-sphere model, and the central role it played in attempts to reform the introductory chemical curriculum at both the high school and college levels in the 1960s. It also critically evaluates the limitations of the model, its current implicit role in the teaching of VSEPR theory, and its pedagogical implications, as well as providing a resource paper for those chemical educators interested in exploring its present-day applications.