Category Archives: Public Art

Paul Bunyan of Bangor

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The good people of Bangor, Maine, want a word with the wider world about how to pronounce the name of the city. Or rather, they want to sing!

I have to say I’ve been careless myself about how I say “Bangor” all these years, including during college, when it was the punchy part of a running joke. The thing is, I don’t remember the joke, or who told it – me, sometimes, I guess – or under what circumstance. Just that it sounded like a funny name, which we were probably mispronouncing. Funny especially when you’re chemically enhanced, as college students are known to be.

But even said soberly, and correctly, it sounds a little funny, as some words are. There’s a town in Wales of the same name, which I assume lent its name to the settlement in Maine, and if you dig deep enough into the Welch, it means “wattled enclosure.”

On April 17, I wrapped up my visit to Maine and headed back toward Massachusetts. By way of Bangor, of course. I had to go there, considering my vague recollections that put it on my personal map of the world.

At the very least, I had to see Bangor’s Paul Bunyan. One of a surprising number of such statues.

Bangor claims the folkloric-ad man-created lumberjack as its own, and why not? Once upon a time, Bangor was a lumber town to beat all. The 31-foot statue looks pretty good, considering it has enduring Maine weather since its erection in 1959 on Main St. a short distance from downtown. Bangorian civic pride won’t let it fall into disrepair, no doubt. A local artist, J. Normand Martin (d. 2021) designed it and a New York company, Messmoor & Damon, built the statue.

Messmoor & Damon has a remarkable story of its own. The company was best known for its animatronic dinosaurs.

“In 1924, the model-making company Messmore & Damon of New York unleashed their masterpiece: the Amphibious Dinosaurus Brontosaurus, a moving, breathing, roaring animatronic dinosaur, based on displays in the American Museum of Natural History,” wrote Chris Manias, a historian at King’s College London.

“This commercial company constructed a whole menagerie of prehistoric automata and sought to take advantage of the growing appeal of paleontology and prehistory. Messmore & Damon presented dinosaurs and prehistoric animals through ever-evolving displays and in a range of contexts, and these were seen by hundreds of thousands of people in the United States, Canada, and France. Their creations were designed to mix commercial spectacle, novel technology, and narratives of life’s development.”

And Messmore & Damon did, one should add, Paul Bunyan of Bangor, who is still seen by many passersby to this day, unlike Amphibious Dinosaurus Brontosaurus, as awe-inspiring as it must have been.

A more recent depiction of Paul in Bangor – a variation of the statue, in fact – is a downtown mural.

Another local artist, Annette Sohns-Dodd, completed the work in 2021, including the slogan. Note that Paul’s not carrying the tools of the lumbering trade, but he seems eager to do his modern job as a Bangor booster.

US 1 New Jersey

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Driving the entire length of US 1 is more logistics that I want to take on at the moment, or maybe ever, but I figure I get a little of the same satisfaction doing it in sections. US 1 from Trenton to Newark, which I drove the afternoon of April 10, isn’t what anyone would call a scenic road, but that I’d say it’s better than the New Jersey Turnpike, whose main scenery is tail lights of other cars.

US 1 in New Jersey is four or six lanes most of the way through, generally is a divided highway, passing large cross streets, retail agglomerations, railroad tracks paralleling for a time, car dealerships, sporadic stretches of forested or other undeveloped land, thick traffic through New Brunswick especially, more than a few Jersey lefts and an uptick in spaghetti interchanges the closer you are to Newark. Stops were for traffic lights, but not too much for simple congestion. Take that, New Jersey Turnpike.

During the drive, I chanced on a radio call-in show that asked callers for stories about crashing wedding receptions, sneaking into off-limits places or other common enough rule infractions, such as taking food into movie theaters. One man claimed to have crashed a reception with a couple of friends, none dressed for the occasion; the father of the bride took a cotton to them and made sure they were well fed and good and drunk before long. One woman claimed to take entire meals to the movies and eat them there, and never being asked to leave. Now this was local radio, a real New Jersey thing to talk about.

Jan had told him many times, “It was you to me who taught:
In Jersey, anything’s legal as long as you don’t get caught.”

“Tweeter and the Monkey Man”, a group effort but clearly a Dylan song, is a brilliant example of a pseudo-ballad. A ballad tells a story, right? A pseudo-ballad seems to tell a story, but at some point near the end of the song, you wonder just what happened. Lyrically, not all of the pieces of the puzzle are available. “Crime and other weird behavior in New Jersey” is about a specific as you can get in this case.

In October, I’d spent a few hours wandering Yale’s stately lawns and buildings and the nearby cemetery. So it only stands to reason – if I’m the one doing the reasoning – that I also visit Princeton, a short way off US 1 not far from Trenton.

Stately buildings.

Early spring on the stately lawns.

Not the best collegiate manhole cover I’ve seen – that would be at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois – but not bad.

Speak to the organ grinder, not the monkey.

A variation on, “Never hold discussion with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room,” which is widely attributed to Winston Churchill.

Princeton is west of US 1; Grovers Mill, New Jersey is to the east, also not far. I had to go there, too. Specifically, to a small park on a small lake in the unincorporated Grovers Mill. A short park trail includes information about Grovers Mills’ claim to fame: in Orson Welles’ version of War of the Worlds, it was the first place the Martians landed.

There’s a sizable plaque, a little bit hidden away, but I found it.

The township of West Windsor, in an unusual display of municipal imagination, erected the memorial in 1988, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the broadcast. Sculptor Thomas Jay Warren did the relief.

The entire script is on line.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, both the observations of science and the evidence of our eyes lead to the inescapable assumption that those strange beings who landed in the Jersey farmlands tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars. The battle which took place tonight at Grovers Mill has ended in one of the most startling defeats ever suffered by any army in modern times; seven thousand men armed with rifles and machine guns pitted against a single fighting machine of the invaders from Mars. One hundred and twenty known survivors. The rest strewn over the battle area from Grovers Mill to Plainsboro, crushed and trampled to death under the metal feet of the monster, or burned to cinders by its heat ray. The monster is now in control of the middle section of New Jersey.

Pine Barrens Disorientation

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Down in South Jersey earlier this month, I didn’t see the Jersey Devil. I did see Mighty Joe.

He counted as my introduction to the Pine Barrens, standing at a convenience store on US 206 in Indian Mills, Shamong Township, New Jersey. His story, which Roadside America tells well, began in Spain – really? – though immigrant Mighty Joe apparently has spent most of his existence in New Jersey as a commercial mascot of one kind or another. He’s still that, but also a memorial to the son of the store’s owner, Larry Valenzano, according to the sign on the gorilla’s chest. The younger Valenzano, a body builder nicknamed Mighty Joe, died of cancer in 1999.

I didn’t stop for Joe heading south on US 206. Can’t stop for everything. I figured I wouldn’t see him on my return to Trenton either, since I was planning to return on smaller roads through the heart of the Pine Barrens, after visiting Atlantic City. All went according to plan, until I actually got into the heart of the Pine Barrens fairly late in the afternoon of April 9.

Considering how close you are to Philadelphia and New York, it’s remarkable how remote the Pine Barrens feel. The region, I understand, is the largest surviving forest on the Eastern Seaboard south of Maine’s North Woods, totaling over 800,000 acres.

The region is also called the Pinelands. It certainly fits.

Remote, maybe, but still plenty of signs of human habitation, past and present. I stopped to take my bearings at a wide place in the road, and noticed gravestones.

French Cemetery, named for a number of people buried named French, not for their nationality. “One of the oldest burial grounds in South Jersey,” the stone asserts. Could be, but I have no way to check that.

Interesting little spot anyway, northeast from Egg Harbor City and past the Mullica River and near the Wading River. Or was that the actual location? I was traveling on marked county roads, but pretty soon I started seeing county road signs covered with black plastic bags, next to newer signs. I can only guess, but I think that meant a recent change in the numbering of the county roads.

That further meant that both my paper and electronic maps were wrong – in as much detail as they had anyway, which wasn’t a lot. “Lost” is too strong a word, but I’d say I was disoriented in a web of meandering, ill-marked roads. I stopped more than once among the pines of the Pinelands to try to figure out a better course.

Then it occurred to me: I remembered seeing some of the exit numbers on highways near Trenton had been changed, too. I’m speculating, but I think that had something to do with my GPS going just a little funny in the head the night before. Damn it, New Jersey.

Eventually I worked my way back toward Egg Harbor City, a sizable town on US 30, which connects with US 280, which goes straight back to Trenton; the way I’d come. That’s how I was able to stop to see Mighty Joe.

Even so, I happened across a few places in the Pinelands to stop, especially Batsto Village, site of the former Batsto Iron Works.

Most of the open-air museum buildings are 19th century, but the Batsto Iron Works had roots that went back to Colonial times. Some enterprising early NJ settlers found bog iron in the area. By the 19th century, the iron smelting was doing well enough to support a company town, including of course the boss’s house.

The company store.

The company paid in script until the workers were organized enough to demand legal tender for their labor. Unlike at Fayette Historic State Park in Michigan, the actual industrial facility, the 19th-century blast furnace, is long gone. The place has a good-looking lake, however. Created by a small dam on Batsto River to harness the water for the sawmill.

A vista that says New Jersey? Yes, but not the New Jersey of song and story.

Back in Egg Harbor City (pop. 4,442), I chanced across the Egg Harbor City Cemetery – another reason to leave the GPS inactive most of the time. If the box tells you where to go, you’ll miss minor misdirections that take you to unexpected places.

I’ve come up with my next approach to traversing the Pine Barrens. There will be a next time, provided my health holds out. That’s always a contingency these days, but anyway the approach can’t be as rational as trying to plot oneself on a map, or even follow the directions from a machine.

The region isn’t that large. That is, provided your car is gassed and in good running condition, since walking out of the Pine Barrels, even following surfaced roads, seems like a bad idea unless you’ve prepared yourself to do so. Assuming you drive, pick a direction – say east, toward the morning sun – and head that way, hewing to the direction as much as possible. It won’t be too long before you come to a reliably numbered state or US highway. Or in that case, the Garden State Parkway.

Sounds doable. Unless you encounter the Jersey Devil.

Lucy the Elephant

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New Jersey flummoxed the GPS system I use occasionally in my car. Twice.

And I mean occasionally: only twice on this trip of nearly 3,500 miles through nine states, both times in New Jersey, and both times the Garden State proved too much for mere trilateration to distant satellites. Later, during a disorientation in Poughkeepsie, NY, I would have done well to use the system, but was too hardheaded for it by that point.

Most of the time, I don’t need it. My alternating use of paper and electronic maps is generally enough. However, GPS can simplify the task of trying to find a specific place – a motel, usually – in an unfamiliar urban area after dark. Provided, it seems, you’re not in New Jersey.

Approaching Trenton on the evening of April 8, I figured that would be the time to turn over navigation to the system. For a while, it seemed to give good directions. Then it told me to enter one of the local expressways, which I did at the point indicated. A few seconds later, the machine gave directions that absolutely made no sense: turn left at the next light. What? I was on an entry ramp of a limited-access expressway. A few more directions bore no relation to reality on the road, so I switched it off, went to the next exit, and found a place to stop and consult Google Maps. I’d been sent away from Trenton.

All that was just an unpleasant memory on the morning of the 9th, as I made my way using paper and electronic maps to the Jersey Shore. It wasn’t until later, during another misdirection in New Jersey, that I got an inkling of what might have happened. Never mind that for now. Eventually – and not too long, New Jersey isn’t that big – I passed through Atlantic City and headed south to my first destination that day: Lucy the Elephant.

“Built of tin and wood in 1882 by James V. Lafferty as a publicity stunt, Lucy was modeled after Jumbo, P.T. Barnum’s real life ‘Largest Elephant on Earth,’ ” notes Atlas Obscura. “Lucy is much larger than Jumbo was, and stands 65 feet high, 60 feet long, 18 feet wide, is made of nearly one million pieces of wood, and weighs about 90 tons.”

Not just a publicity stunt, but a seminal one by a real estate developer, so much so that he was awarded a patent for the structure. “Land speculator” is perhaps more descriptive, but anyway Lafferty had a chunk of ocean-adjacent property he was looking to peddle south of Atlantic City, itself only a pup of a resort at the time, but certainly an up-and-comer.

Never mind real estate, Lafferty is pretty much remembered for the marvel that is Lucy. As he should be.

“Most of South Atlantic City at that time was a combination of scrub pine, dune grass, bayberry bushes and a few wooden fishing shacks,” says the Lucy web site. “Once Lafferty hit upon the Elephant idea he enlisted the aid of a Philadelphia architect named William Free to design this unusual structure he felt would attract visitors and property buyers to his holdings… Lafferty always claimed that before the work was finished the cost skyrocketed to $38,000.

“By 1881 Lafferty was placing advertisements in area and Philadelphia newspapers offering building lots in ‘fast booming South Atlantic City.’ Lafferty eventually extended himself too far in his land deals both at the Jersey Shore and in New York and by 1887 sought to unload his South Atlantic City holdings. He offered the Elephant and other property for sale and found a willing buyer in Anton Gertzen of Philadelphia.”

Lucy wasn’t the only elephant for Lafferty: he had others, even larger, built for Coney Island and Cape May, but they didn’t survive, and one proposed for the Columbian Exhibition in 1893 that was never built. Lucy almost didn’t survive to our time either, following a familiar arc of survival to the mid-20th century in an increasingly dilapidated state, then facing demolition. Citizen activism saved Lucy, setting up a nonprofit and finding the money for restoration, and now she attracts roughly 40,000 visitors a year.

She stands on Atlantic Ave. in Margate City, NJ. A fairly ordinary street but for a few details.

Lucy the Elephant, Margate City, NJ

Looks, I’m glad to report, are free from the street and from the grounds. An interior visit at Lucy has an admission. While I didn’t do that, I supported Lucy through the purchase of postcards and a magnet across the street in the gift shop.

Margate seems happy these days to have Lucy around.

Lucy is a stone’s throw from a pretty nice beach.

Sunny that day, but a mite chilly. So I had the place practically to myself on a Thursday. Once upon a time, I understand that Margate had a boardwalk, like Atlantic City and a lot of other Jersey Shore towns, but the Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944 destroyed most of it, and Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962 finished it off.

Unlike the boardwalk, Lucy abides.

Like I said, a stone’s throw from the beach.

The Pennsylvania State Capitol

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Pennsylvania has a handsome capitol, no doubt about it. At its dedication in 1906, TR called it “the handsomest building I ever saw.”

That must have been satisfying for the architect, Joseph Huston (d. 1940), to hear, or hear about.

But he didn’t have long to bask in the glory of his design. A few years later, Huston was in prison. Specifically, Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, back when that was a functioning stony lonesome.

“Huston eventually was charged with conspiracy to defraud the State of Pennsylvania by accepting bribes for the work on the Capitol and by charging the State more than was proper for the contracts required to complete the structure,” says Philadelphia Architects and Buildings. “Convicted on 29 April 1910, and after an unsuccessful attempt to mount a new trial… he served six months and 20 days in prison but was paroled on 20 December 1911 and returned to an architectural practice which was significantly affected by his legal difficulties.”

I’ll bet his practice was affected. An unusual tale for an architect, something you’d associate more with a contractor, but I suppose the temptation was too great for Huston and besides, grand buildings throughout the ages all had cost overruns, right? All the way back to the Ziggurat of Ur. That clearly didn’t cut any ice with the jury.

Whatever his side interests, Huston promised a palace of art to the commonwealth, and he delivered.

I arrived in Harrisburg fairly late in the afternoon of April 8, on my second day driving east. Pennsylvania is a long drive across, and I’d started in Cleveland, with the goal of reaching Trenton, New Jersey that evening. I did, but it didn’t leave much time to stop and see things. I was glad to learn that the capitol building was open until 6 pm, so I made time for it.

The grand staircase, flowing down to, or up from, the distinctive tile floor under the rotunda.

Art flourishes not just on the vaulting dome or the ornate walls, but even underfoot.

Henry Chapman Mercer mosaic

Henry Chapman Mercer, a Pennsylvania artist, did the mosaics grouted into the floor – scenes from the history of the commonwealth, from pre-history to the dawn of the 20th century. A good introduction to Mercer, one of the more interesting people I’ve first heard about lately. Among other achievements, he left behind his home, Fonthill; the Mercer Museum; and the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, all in Doyleville, Pa., which is suburban Philadelphia these days. As if I needed another reason to revisit metro Philly.

A lot of scenes, it turns out, more than I could photography or even see. Including one that might not have made the cut in later times.

The House and Senate chambers weren’t open late that afternoon. I understand they are important parts of the art palace. More can been seen here about the decorative arts of those rooms, and the rest of the capitol.

Not art, but this was good to see. I figure it isn’t literally for newspaper reporters any more, but I like to think when you open the door, you step into the press room of The Front Page.

Statuary out front: two groups consisting of 27 figures. The artist in this case is George Grey Barnard (d. 1938), born in Pennsylvania, but I believe Chicago can claim him. Wouldn’t be a palace-of-art from 100+ years ago without larger-than-life statues in profusion. I’m glad the commonwealth has seen fit to keep them clean.

The upper couple would seem to be Adam and Eve; and wags might call the other couple Adam and Steve.

In the sidewalk in front of the capitol: The Keystone. You can see that in various parts of the state, but I remember it most from the keystone-shaped signs in Pennsylvania that tell you that a garage will do state inspections for your car.

The view down State Street from the entrance. Off in the distance, the Susquehanna.

Couldn’t very well leave Harrisburg without a stroll down that street.

Two monumental churches rise on the street. The Cathedral Parish of Saint Patrick.

Grace United Methodist Church.

I had to be on my way afterward. But any trip that starts off with a grand capitol is going to be a good one.

GTT ’26 Details

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Time for spring break. Back to posting around April 26, when it might actually be spring in northern Illinois. There have been a few days recently when I’ve been able to sit out on my deck comfortably, which is my idea of spring, but not that many.

The recent trip to Texas seems like a while ago now. As usual, though, there were many details. A lot more than I can convey, but here are a few more.

Faces

At the National Funeral Museum in Houston, one display featured, chronologically, 20 photographs of Abraham Lincoln. The third to last one, from February 1865, is one you don’t see much.

On a wall in downtown Nacogdoches, familiar figures from Texas.

I didn’t work out who this was supposed to be, in downtown Houston. Better that way, I think.

Signs

This place in Austin, well known to Tom, serves most delicious tacos.

Bastrop: Cobbling runs in the family.

Belton.

Structures

A re-creation of an ancient Caddo home.

Durst-Taylor Historic House & Garden in Nacogdoches.

The Old Stone Fort Museum in the same town, which is made of stone, but was never a fort. On the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University. Recommendation to the university: if you want people to visit the place, provide just a little unrestricted parking. A little visitor parking anywhere on campus would be good.

Then again, the university seems determined to move the structure anyway — which might mean taking it apart, and then not putting it anywhere where because such a move would cost too much.

A place that has seen better days in Houston.

Downtown Lockhart.

The Southwest Museum of Clocks & Watches is permanently closed, alas.

Items

Cosmic in Austin is a bar and a collection of food trucks that surround an informal plaza with a lot of tables and chairs and shade. It’s a very pleasant place, and within walking distance of Tom’s home.

Houston manhole covers.

An artifact at the Old Stone Fort, but from San Augustine, and a hyperlocal soda bottle.

The New Mexico flag near Carlsbad NP.

Landscapes

Not just any landscapes, but within the Sierra Madera Astrobleme in West Texas. US 385 cuts right through the ancient crater for about eight miles, on the way to Marathon. You’d never know but for signs telling you that you’re entering the astrobleme, and one telling you that you are leaving it.

Memorials

The Houston National Cemetery.

RIP, Richard Allen Wilson. I don’t think that I’d ever seen an infinity symbol on a national cemetery stone. That, of course, made me curious, and I checked: it is one of the 98 various symbols that the National Cemetery Administration allows. The list is here.

I’m familiar with most of them, but not quite all of them, such as the Church of World Messianity, which is a Japanese new religion – it’s hard to keep track of all of those – and the Aaronic Order Church, which may or may not be part of the LDS movement, but in any case is an American sect. Hard to keep track of all those, too.

The NCA says: “No graphics (logos, symbols, etc.) are permitted on Government-furnished headstones or markers other than the available emblems of belief, the Civil War Union Shield, the Civil War Confederate Southern Cross of Honor, and the Medal of Honor insignias… Emblems of belief for inscription on Government headstones and markers do not include social, cultural, ethnic, civic, fraternal, trade, commercial, political, professional or military emblems.”

So (for example) symbols for the Loyal Order of Moose or some odd emoji or maybe a grawlix will not be considered, though as a comment about the Army, the latter would be funny.

Finally, a less formal memorial, but I’m sure just as heartfelt.

A memorial for Francisco Lin Herrera happens to be near the Giant paintings outside of Marfa. He died in an accident along that stretch of US 90. RIP, Francisco.

More Marfa

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Entering Marfa, Texas, from the east on US 90, I spotted this off to the side of the road.

A side road offers a view but not, as far as I could see, access to the site.

Also no signage, which I took to be a bonus. Like the Cadillac Ranch, the thing was just there. It can be looked up later, of course, to reveal that it’s a large bit of sculpture called “Sleeping Figure” by Los Angeles-based artist Matt Johnson and only moved to Marfa in 2024 from its original place in the Coachella Valley.

In town, we took a stroll down Highland Ave. and around the courthouse. The former Marfa Opera House.

Later the Palace Theater. Various sources, which seem to be copying each other, say that the theater closed in the 1970s, which is probably accurate, and that an artist uses it as his studio now, which I’m less certain about, since there place looked wholly vacant. Still, as an art town, you’d think Marfa would use the space for something closer to its original uses – live events, maybe standard theater and movies, but also popup performance art from time to time.

A number of churches ring the courthouse. St. Paul’s Episcopal.

First United Methodist.

First Christian Church.

It’s a coincidence of placement, probably, but it still looks like the church and the pickup truck are a set. An answer to the longstanding theological question, WWJD, What Would Jesus Drive?

Marfa Texas

Elsewhere in Marfa, an example of something you see when doing something else – in this case, buying gas.

West from Marfa on US 90, on the road to Valentine and Van Horn, are characters from the last of James Dean’s three movies, the one in which he implausibly grows old. Some of that movie was filmed in the area – on the ranch behind the barbed wire, in fact.

“A donation to the city of Marfa, the mural by artist John Cerney honors the movie Giant (1956), which was partially filmed in this small west Texas town,” says Texas Time Travel. “The mural is a collaboration with singer/songwriter/musician Michael Nesmith who made possible the addition of an audio element to the mural installation. The sounds of Nesmith and his First National Band Redux play continually on a loop from hidden speakers near the automobile in the scene.”

Further down the same road, in fact close to the hamlet of Valentine, is the Marfa Prada. Not the Valentine Prada, because who has ever heard of Valentine, Texas (pop. 217)?

Texas Time Travel again: “Prada Marfa is a site specific, permanent land art project by artists Elmgreen & Dragset, commissioned by Art Production Fund and Ballroom Marfa. Modeled after a Prada boutique, the sculpture houses luxury goods from the famed brand’s fall 2005 collection of bags and shoes.”

Detail near the road. Not sure if it was added by the artist or someone else.

The fence partly around the locked building is festooned with love locks.

And a love chain? For a more spicy time.

The San Angelo Riverwalk

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Saw an ad today about paleovalley beef sticks (no caps on the package). Not only is that the funniest thing I saw all day, that brand name is genius. Also, Paleovalley could be the title of a gritty reboot, as there are no other kinds, of the incredibly obscure Korg: 70,000 BC.

Into the rabbit hole: that made me wonder whether Cro-Magnon is even a scientific term anymore. Has it been replaced by some newer and more precise, or more politic, term?

No. It’s still Cro-Magnon. Most definitely. Who has the first Cro-Magnon skull discovered? The Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian notes about its Cro-Magnon: “Cro-Magnon 1 was among the first fossils to be recognized as belonging to our own species — Homo sapiens. This famous fossil skull is from one of several modern human skeletons found at the famous rock shelter site at Cro-Magnon, near the village of Les Eyzies, France.”

So the Cro-Magnon were actually early Frenchmen? Never mind the gritty reboot, this is comedy: cavemen with goofy French accents (and I know about Gaul and the arrival of the Franks in historic times, but this is TV we’re talking about). It probably would be bad comedy, for sure. As It’s About Time and Cavemen tell us, it’s hard to wring good comedy out of Paleolithic material.

Then again, consider this from the Wiki entry about Cavemen (2007): In the series, cavemen were never really fully supplanted by modern humans, but integrated into Homo sapiens civilization as a separate species sub-group. Cavemen are a small but widespread minority group that have been present in every global civilization since the dawn of recorded history… Effectively, Cavemen form another ethnic minority in the modern world, which faces several prejudices from Homo sapiens... Although these cavemen self-identify as Cro-Magnon, their facial appearance and physical anatomy is reminiscent of the Neanderthal.

I’d guess that the writers of the show, and the original GEICO commercials, didn’t invent that idea. But what a good idea for fiction, comedy or drama. I didn’t see any episodes of Cavemen, but by all accounts the show was very stupid indeed, so as often the case, it’s an example of a terrific idea badly executed. Too bad.

The San Angelo Riverwalk

San Antonio has a great riverwalk. Everyone should know that. Not as great, but still a pleasant place for a stroll on a warm day, is the riverwalk along the Concho River in San Angelo, Texas. Technically the North Concho River, since it joins the South Concho not far downriver, on its way to the Colorado. It has everything a riverwalk needs: a river, sidewalks and park lands next to it.

Artwork along the way.

A foot bridge.

The Abe St. bridge.

And a mermaid.

“Pearl of the Conchos,” it’s called.

“The bronze statue is an enlargement of Jayne Charless Beck’s original mermaid sculpture,” says Mermaids of the Earth. “Jayne was a San Angelo resident artist, who passed away in 1993. In 1994 this bronze casting was donated by friends of Jayne Beck to the City of San Angelo, and was placed next to a pedestrian bridge close to the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art.

“In this area, a freshwater mussel species produces lustrous pearls in many colors, famous since the time of the Spanish conquistadors.”

Downtown San Angelo

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I had a fondness for maps as a kid, and few were better than the Texas State Highway Maps produced by the Texas Highway Department, a predecessor agency of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). One of the maps’ features was a small stroke of genius – one later dropped, of course – that put the very largest urban areas in yellow, mid-sized ones in green and relatively small cities in brown. At a glance you could size up the size of a place you might be driving, if you didn’t happen to know.

Under that scheme, San Angelo, Texas, came in green, if I remember right. Not in the same league as yellow Houston, Dallas, San Antonio or Austin, or even El Paso and Waco, but bigger than places like Pampa, Killeen or Orange, again if I remember right (the old maps are tucked away in San Antonio). Why was there a mid-sized city in San Angelo’s location, I don’t ever remembering asking.

Easy enough to find out now: a frontier fort at confluence of two sizable rivers whose town grew as nearby cattlemen prospered, and oil services took root. In our time, there are also other usual-suspect major employers, such as schools and hospitals, and the military never left, considering the presence of Goodfellow Air Force Base, which managed to survive the wave of base closures and consolidations in recent decades (unlike some).

On a drive from DFW to West Texas, San Angelo seemed like a good place to stop for a night, and we arrived just before dark. The next morning, we took a look around, especially downtown. First, a handsome train station.

Mostly, San Angelo isn’t a high-rise city.

With some small-city exceptions, such as the Hotel —– building.

Street art.

Chicago has cows, San Angelo sheep. Back the USDA for ag stats: cattle are by far the most common livestock in Tom Green County, with $49.5 million in sales in 2022. But there are a fair number of sheep, with sheep, goats, wool, mohair and milk selling $4.2 million that year. For cattle production, the county comes in at only the 30th highest sales volume in Texas; but for sheep etc., the county ranks fifth statewide.

Again with the overrepresentation of cowboys. If there are art sheep on the streets of San Angelo, why no art shepherds? Then again, a modern shepherd probably looks a lot like a modern cowboy, so maybe that is a shepherd.

I had to look him up. Elmer Kelton (d. 2009), San Angelo resident, wrote a lot of Westerns.

An unassuming exterior, but a fair amount going on inside, at least most evenings. I had to look up FiFi DuBois, too. The association of the San Angelo establishment with New York entertainer isn’t quite clear — is Fifi an owner or part owner, or is there some kind of licensing agreement?

Anyway: “The House of FiFi DuBois in downtown San Angelo is on the market for $1.3 million as its owners seek a new buyer to continue its legacy,” San Angelo Live reported in February.

“The property is located at 123 S. Chadbourne St. and is approximately a 16,250-square-foot building that includes the ground-floor bar and venue, an Airstream trailer feature, plus a massive upstairs loft and additional rentable spaces that offer potential for multiple income streams, such as office use, short-term rentals, or expansion.

“The business remains open, thriving, and operating normally, according to information found online…”

Now I’m repeating information “found online.” But it’s probably reasonable to assume that the House of Fifi DuBois, with a lineup like this, is alive and well. Looks like the joint has both kinds of music, country and western, and plenty of drag shows. Cowboys and drag shows: now that’s West Texas variety, if you asked me.

Airstream feature? Tucked away in the venue is an Airstream that can be rented separately, it seems.

Meeting Chadbourne St. at the perpendicular is Concho Ave., named for the river, which was named for its bounty of shells. Near that intersection is a building that looks a tad underutilized.

I’ve interviewed too many real estate developers not to think, man, if that building could only be teleported to Brooklyn – or even Scott’s Addition…

The nearby block is mostly occupied, however. With local shops.

Also, it sports a stretch of raised, plank sidewalk.

The plates are flush enough with the boards not to be a trip hazard, fortunately.

A stuff shop: J. Wilde’s.

San Angelo Texas

Is Miss Hattie’s a serious museum about underrepresented local history or a commercial venture romanticizing 19th-century prostitution? I don’t know. Miss Hattie’s, like Fifi’s, was closed at that moment.

One more detail from Concho Ave.

The only reason I know what that is, is that St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio, a place I knew well, was founded before the advent of the motor-car. As such, a few iron rings were mounted in the curb in front of the sanctuary – exactly like the ring pictured above. A place to tie up your horse. I might have asked about the feature, or my mother might have pointed it out, but anyway I learned about the iron rings. Does it matter to us auto-mobile drivers that we know this? No. But it adds just a touch of hyperlocal color.

Stephenville & Ballinger, Texas

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Regards for Easter. And Maundy Thursday and Good Friday and Easter Saturday. Back posting on Easter Monday.

This seemed like a fitting set of images for the occasion.

A 100-foot steel cross rises on a small hill a few miles south of Ballinger, Texas, seat of Runnels County. Couldn’t very well pass that up, considering that we were passing through Ballinger (pop. about 3,600) anyway, toward the end of our drive that day from metro DFW to San Angelo, Texas.

“The Ballinger cross was built by a local construction company and commissioned by Jim and Doris Studer, owners of Buddy’s Plant Plus,” notes the Austin Chronicle. “The company is the only U.S. factory making water-soluble fertilizer for Miracle-Gro. After 20 years of making fertilizers in Florida, the Studers went looking for a drier climate. In 1988, they moved the company to Ballinger, where it quickly became one of the largest employers in the county.”

Jim Studer reportedly had been considering the construction of a cross about half that height, as a token of gratitude for a successful business. Then, during a visit to Florida, he was nearly electrocuted in what could easily have been a fatal accident – and decided to roughly double the size of the structure. A thanks to the Lord for not being offed at that moment, perhaps, but no doubt sincere gratitude regardless, for his thriving business. The cross went up in 1993.

We’d left Dallas that morning in mid-February, skirting the cities on I-20 West, except for a brief stop in the Fort Worth museum district. Specifically, at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Yuriko had heard about my visit in 2019 and been slightly miffed, since she too wanted to see the Tadao Ando-designed structure. So we shoehorned a visit for a look at the structure on the day’s itinerary, though not the museum collection. It loses nothing on a second viewing. Gets better.

Go southwest from Fort Worth on US 377 and soon enough you’ll arrive in Stephenville (pop. 20,800 or so), seat of Erath County.

A dairy industry in Erath County? Yes, indeed: sales of $350.9 million in 2022, according to the USDA, by far the largest ag product in the county, and third highest for milk sales among all the 254 counties in Texas, and 24th in the nation. Meat cattle in Erath County are a distant second at $82.7 million that year, so a milk cow standing in the shadow on the Erath County courthouse is just about right.

I had to look it up: number one county in nation for milk production by dollar volume is not in Wisconsin, but rather Tulare County, California, at more than $2.8 billion in 2022. First out of 1,770 counties nationwide producing milk. Now there’s a Jeopardy answer to stump everyone.

We ate lunch in Stephenville at Greer’s, which served a chicken-fried steak to beat all, then took a constitutional around the Erath County courthouse. Starting with one hefty former bank building, vintage 1889.

For Texas county courthouses, James Riely Gordon (d. 1937) is a starchitect, but of course that wasn’t all he did. When he designed this bank, he was 26.

Every town worth its late 19th-century salt has to have an opera house.

Also, a musical favorite son: Milton Brown.

Wiki: “Brown began his musical career in 1930, when he met Bob Wills and guitarist Herman Arnspiger. They were performing at a local Fort Worth dance and Brown joined the duo on a chorus of ‘St. Louis Blues.’ The trio decided to team up to play medicine shows around Texas and Brown landed a regular radio spot on WBAP for the group, where they played a show sponsored by Aladdin Lamp Company, which had the band change its name to the Aladdin Laddies.”

Man, there’s another streaming platform limited series for you: the founding of western swing. Add a fictional love triangle between Bob Wills and Milton Brown and a fictional fetching woman, and some fictional tension between Bob and Milton, who nevertheless produce terrific music to enthusiastic audiences early in the Depression, until Milton dies suddenly in the last episode in a car wreck, as the real musician did in 1936 at age 32. Bob is left to carry on.

Milton’s not the only one honored near the Erath County courthouse.

There were a fair number of plaques like this, too many to read, so I picked one.

Chicago had its art cows (that was in 1999?!?) and Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, has its sturgeons, so Stephenville had boots?

You’d think maybe, considering the importance of dairy locally, there would also be — do dairy workers wear special boots? If so, there should be one of those on display too.

More Stephenville.

US 67 joins US 377 for a run southwest of Stephenville, through such burgs as Dublin, Comanche and Brownwood. Then US 377 peels away to the south; but we followed US 67 west to Ballinger. That town was mostly a stop to get our bearings, really, but I also did a short walkabout while Yuriko napped in the car.

I made the acquaintance of Charles H. Noyes (d. 1917).

Charles was a young Runnels County man who died by being thrown from his horse while minding cattle. His parents tasked no less than Pompeo Coppin to do the sculpture honoring his memory. Nice work, Pompeo. RIP, Charles.