Wild Swans in Arkansas

Magness Lake

In early January, 1991, in the skies somewhere north of Arkansas, three juvenile swans were caught in a snowstorm and became separated from their flock. Despite their 7-foot wingspans and powerful wing beats, they were blown far off the normal course of their migration path. That evening, nearing exhaustion, they heard the calls of geese who had settled for the night onto the sheltered waters of a small lake outside Heber Springs. The swans came down to rest and recuperate from their ordeal.

The next day, 4 birdwatchers happened to drive by the lake and when one of them called out in surprise at what he saw, the others didn't believe him. Wild swans had not been seen in Arkansas for at least 80 years so their doubts were justified. However, their sharp-eyed friend convinced them to stop and look for themselves. When they walked back and spotted the 3 swans, they were astonished. "Those aren't Trumpeter swans, are they?" As if on cue, one of the birds called out and there was no doubt. The loud, trumpet-like sound which gives them their name cannot be mistaken for anything else. For a few days anyway, the endangered Trumpeter Swan, the largest fowl in North America and the rarest of swans was back in Arkansas.

The owner of the lake and surrounding farmland, Perry Lindner, for a number of years had been feeding corn to the wintering waterfowl who came to Magness Lake. When he came out several days later, he saw the new visitors so he spread extra handfuls of corn along the shore near them. The hungry birds eagerly ate all he put out. They enjoyed their new home and the free corn so much that instead of staying just a few days, they didn't leave until February 24th.

Nobody expected the swans to return after that first visit. Evidently they liked Magness Lake so much though that not only did they return on Christmas Day, they brought several friends. They were then joined in January by a female and her mate who had been banded in Minnesota. This time the group stayed until the last day of February. The next year, the same group returned and this time the banded female and her mate brought 3 cygnets (juvenile swans) with them. Since then, the swans have taken a break on their way south and returned every year bringing mates, family members and friends. More than 150 swans now stop at Magness Lake and surrounding ponds for several winter months to rest and replenish with the deer corn people bring to feed them.

By a quirk of fate, where once there were no swans  in the whole state, there are now many and the people who make the effort can stand within a few feet of North America's largest, most beautiful waterfowl. It's an experience you will probably never forget.

 




 

Ozymandias Legs On The Texas Plains

Standing out in the vast, flat plains of west Texas, most of the towns are small and the highest point is the Dairy Queen sign. Eleven miles outside of Amarillo though stands something totally incongruent with that flatness - a giant pair of disembodied legs, all that is left of an ancient statue. A few feet away from the barbed-wire enclosed legs is a Texas State Historical Marker. The inscription on the marker states in part: In 1819, while on a horseback trek over the great plains of New Spain, Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary came across these ruins. Here Shelley penned 'the poem Ozymandias.' The visage (or face) of the statue was damaged by students from Lubbock after losing to Amarillo in a competition. A stone cast of it will be replaced when it is ready. The original is now on display in the Amarillo Museum of Natural History. Souvenir hunters have scraped off the bottom of the pedestal. Archaeologists have determined it was as Shelley described it.

You are standing looking at a genuine relic of an historical time! At least, that's what you are supposed to think.

In 1996, Stanley Marsh 3 (he uses the number "3" as he feels the Roman numeral "III" is pretentious), the creator of the infamous Cadillac Ranch and other local oddities he referred to as "a legalized form of insanity" commissioned local artist Lightnin' McDuff to create a replica of the ruins in Percy's poem. Only working part-time (Lightnin' had a tendency to fall off his scaffold in the wind so he only worked on calm days), the legs were completed 2 years later.

Standing on a base which is 4 feet tall, 10 feet wide and 20 feet long, the left leg rises 24 feet in the air and the right leg stands 34 feet high. The whole thing is made of concrete, but the legs were made to look like they were carved from sandstone and very old. Lightnin' said, "Stanley wanted them to look like they were weathered and old and had been through prairie fires and storms and one thing or another."

To complete the illusion, prankster Marsh also commissioned a fake Texas Historical marker to mislead the curious. The marker states 3 erroneous claims - the first is that these legs were the inspiration for Shelly's poem, but they were obviously built many years later. It also states the "shattered visage" was damaged as a casualty between the Amarillo and Lubbock schools. In fact, Lightnin' never made a face to accompany the legs. And last, the nonexistent visage does not reside in the Amarillo Museum of Natural History because, just like the face, the museum does not exist. Amarillo has never had a Museum of Natural History. The historical marker is a close enough replica of the real thing though that the Texas Historical Commission reports they often get inquiries from the unsuspecting as to why the marker is not listed on their official web site.

Much like the Cadillac Ranch, the statue and fake marker are frequent targets of graffiti artist. Several times a year the unsightly paint is sandblasted away, but it doesn't take long for the vandal artists to return. Stopping by on a recent road trip, we were totally alone the 30 minutes we were there. The only sound was the cold wind steadily blowing from the north and a disinterested cow standing in the field chewing its cud. We found the marker to be so covered in paint that it was almost impossible to read. There is an abundance of litter around. The statue is rather remote and isolated and is evidently enjoyed as a place of romantic encounters. Among the empty liquor bottles, beer cans and fast food wrappers, we saw 2 bra's (both white), a pair of red thongs and a pair of pink bikini panties, one blouse, a pair of girl's shorts, a pair of jeans and an unopened condom. Interestingly, we saw no men's clothing items. 

Lightnin' McDuff

Not unlike the Egyptian King Ramesses II (Ozymandias is Ramesses in Greek) who filled the Valley of the Kings with monuments to himself, Stanley Marsh 3 filled Amarillo with monuments to his humor. When asked why he had the legs built and placed in a large open field, he said Shelley's poem is about the futility of monuments so he built a monument to it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land,

Who said, "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mock them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

Silent Witness - Halfway Oak Tree

Trees have been used as landmarks, meeting places and for protection from harsh weather. They have provided wood for homes and church's and provided cooling shade in the hot summer. In times of war they have been used as mustering places, scouting nests, and sniper's perches. In times of peace, churches and courts have been held under their limbs and sometimes, those same limbs were used to provide frontier justice. Over 500 years after Columbus sailed the ocean blue and Europeans first came to America, some of the saplings from then are still alive, silent witnesses to history. If only they could speak.

The Halfway Oak Tree next to Hwy 183

One of these trees, an gnarled, old live oak, lives on the windswept plains 13 miles south of Breckenridge, Texas. For miles around there's no other tree so it's hard to miss. The tree got its name from its location: halfway between Breckenridge and Cisco. In the 1800's it served as a halfway rest stop on the original Fort Griffin to Stephenville stage coach passage. Noted on maps as early as 1858, it provided travelers a refuge for centuries.

in 1867, Fort Griffin was one of the frontier forts built to defend settlers against Indians and outlaws. The town of Fort Griffin, named for the fort but called "The Flat" by everyone, was established nearby. This lawless frontier outpost attracted many infamous characters of western lore such as Mollie McCabe and John Wesley Hardin. Lawlessness was so bad that the Flat was eventually placed under martial law and soldiers ran the outlaws and troublemakers out of town. As the bad guys rode south, they no doubt stopped under the old oak tree just long enough to rest their horses for a few minutes. In 1877, Wyatt Earp came through The Flat hot on the trail of a fleeing criminal. Doc Holiday was coming to help his friend apprehend the scofflaw and Wyatt left word for Doc that he would wait for him at the Halfway Oak. The next day, Doc caught up with Wyatt at his camp beside the tree.

In the oil boom of the 1920s, thousands of prospectors rushed into Breckenridge. Photographs from that time show almost nothing but wooden oil derricks stretching to the distant horizon. The oil boom brought railroads and the tracks for one line were laid less than 200 feet west of the tree. The tracks are long gone now, but the Half-Way Oak still stands.

Over the many years of its life, the tough old tree has suffered through drought, ice storms, misguided pruning, an accidental poisoning and several car crashes, one of them fatal. (It must be rather embarrassing for there to be only one tree for miles around and somehow you crashed your car into it.) In the 1970s the tree was scheduled to be removed for the widening of Highway 183, but the citizens of Breckenridge banded together, refusing to allow the tree to be cut. Instead of living history being destroyed, the road was routed around it and a few picnic tables and a nice highway pull-off were added, allowing the Half-Way Oak to continue to provide a welcome respite for travelers.

 

World's 2nd Longest Burning Lightbulb

There's something to be said for an object that just keeps on doing its job, day after day, year after year. Especially when that object consists of thin glass and wispy little wire. Steadiness in good times and bad. Reliability and durability you can count on.

In 1970, the Guinness Book of World Records listed a light bulb in in Ft. Worth, Texas as  the world's "most durable." But then somebody in Livermore, California jumped up and said a bulb in a fire station there had been burning even longer. A lady claimed she was the daughter of a man who had donated some light bulbs to Fire Station #6 on East Avenue and she remembered the light bulb being installed and turned on in 1901. Or maybe it was 1902. Or it might have been 1905. Even with this somewhat sketchy "documentation," Guinness decided the claim was legitimate and the little lightbulb in Ft. Worth was dethroned and relegated to obscurity.

Since bulbs usually fail when they are turned back on, the city of Livermore installed a dedicated power source for the bulb to ensure no electrical interruption even in a blackout or a fire house blown fuse. A rheostat was installed to smooth out any power surges. For its maybe, possibly 100th birthday, the Sandia National Laboratories donated and installed a "Bulbcam," a small camera which has its own web page showing the world that "The Centennial Light," as it has been named, is still burning.

"The Eternal Light"

But what about that forgotten bulb in Ft. Worth? Even in relative obscurity, it still burns, still doing its job. Known as "The Eternal Light," it spent its early life illuminating a stage door entrance at Byer's Opera House on 7th Street. Thanks to meticulous record keeping by the opera house, this bulb is proven to have been screwed in and turned on by a stagehand named Barry Burke on September 21, 1908. The opera house was sold in 1919 and turned into the Palace Theatre, but being a rear door, the light was never turned off throughout the years.

In 1970, a nameless somebody flipped a very dusty, never used switch just to see what it went to. The building's owner happened to walk by as the bulb went dark. When he found out what caused it, in a panic, he flipped the switch back and was astounded and relieved when the little light came right back on and burned as steady as ever. After shouting a while (nobody knows what happened to the guy whose curiosity got the better of him and flipped the switch), he placed a piece of cardboard over the wall switch with clear instructions to never, ever, ever touch the switch. 

"The Eternal Light" in it's display case.

Ft. Worth Stockyards entrance portal.

The only other time the bulb was dark was in 1977 as the old building was being torn down. A man named George Dato knew about the bulb which had been burning for so long and managed to remove it and put it in a socket at his home which he then kept turned on. In 1991, it was turned off one more time, the bulb unscrewed and transported to a socket in a glass display case in Ft. Worth's Stockyards Museum. Everyone held their breath when the power was flipped on, but once again, the bulb began glowing and it hasn't stopped yet. 

To see the unheralded World's 2nd Longest Burning Lightbulb, visit the Stockyards Museum at 131 E. Exchange Ave, Ft. Worth, Texas. You might want to hurry as there is no telling when it will finally give up the ghost and become just another burned out bulb. Or who knows, the thing just might keep on shining and outlast us all.
 

Postcard From Terlingua, Texas

Just south of Alpine on Texas Hwy 118 going to Terlingua is where civilization takes an abrupt vacation.  This seemingly endless highway, devoid of towns, gas stations, motels, stores and most other cars is like a road leading to the end of the world. If you are the kind who likes isolation and simplicity, the 80 miles of desert, ranch land and mountains have the ability to awe you with beauty. A drive through any desert can be very enjoyable if you have a reliable car, but if your car is sickly, this is one of those roads that should only be aspired to rather than attempted.

Man has inhabited the area around Terlingua for at least 10,500 years. The Comanche and Apache Indians controlled the region for many generations. Explorers occasionally came here, but never stayed. The land was too remote, too harsh, and the fierce Indians drove away even the hardiest and most dedicated. In the late nineteenth century, after the Indians had been largely subjugated and removed by the soldiers, a few settlers came to this wild area to try and make a go of it, but the land accepted civilization only reluctantly.

To call the area settled and fully civilized today would be stretching it. It takes a different kind of person to live here year-round. The few ranchers, desert-rats, and other residents are strong-willed, determined, stubborn individualist who protect their way of life and freedom with fierceness not usually seen in "normal" folks. There are few police and the area is large. If people here have a problem, they take care of it themselves. And if one of their own needs help, they're right there to lend a hand. A lot of people would like to live that way, but few actually can.

Once you pass the Longhorn Ranch Motel, you know you are close to the town. There is no town limit sign, no official boundary. Stubbornly remaining unincorporated, you are either in town or you are not. Like most of Texas, being in Terlingua isn't so much a matter of physically being there as it is a state of mind.

Cinnabar in the area was found and used by Native Americans who prized its bright red color for body art and as paint for rock and cave paintings. Mexican miners had discovered the cinnabar deposits by the 1850's, but until the 1890's, the remoteness and hostile Indians prevented wide-scale mining. Since mercury was used in the fuses of bombs and bullets, mining in the area took off in the early 1900's and continued through 1945 until the conclusion of WWII greatly reduced the market. The population plummeted from 3,000 to zero within weeks of the mines closing and Terlingua became a true ghost town with abandoned buildings, mine tailings and discarded cars and wagons rotting away in the desert sun.

Terlingua ruins

Terlingua remained deserted, desolate and lonely until 1967 when Wick Fowler, Frank Tolbert and Carol Shelby organized a chili cook-off to be held in the former town. The whole thing began when H. Allen Smith, a writer from New York, claimed in a magazine article that nobody could make better chili than him. The Texas boys promptly answered, claiming Smith was a "know-nothing maker of vegetable stew" and issued a challenge to pit Wick Fowler's Texas chili against Smith's New York version in what they called "The Great Chili Confrontation." Shelby owned a 220,000 acre ranch outside Terlingua so it was decided to host the competition in the ghost town just to see if they could attract a crowd of people to the middle of nowhere. News of the upcoming contest became widely known when it was written up in numerous national publications, including Sports Illustrated.

More than 1,000 people showed up for that initial contest, all of them sleeping in tents or their cars since there were no lodging facilities. Large quantities of alcohol was imbibed and all sorts of foolishness and nudity was not only tolerated, but encouraged. In the middle of it all, Fowler and Smith managed to cook their chili. 3 judges were tasked with determining a winner. The contest was declared moot when the tie-breaker judge gagged on a spoonful of Smith's chili and fell to the floor in gastric distress. He eventually was able to claim his taste buds had been damaged beyond repair and he had been rendered physically incapable of submitting a vote.

From that debaucherous start, a few hardy individuals began arriving to live in the crumbling buildings. A commune of hippies tried, but failed to create a sustainable desert utopia. Eventually, others came who wanted to settle there because they liked the isolation or needed the remoteness to leave their past behind and get a clean start. Asking a person about their past was considered rude and could even be dangerous.

Terlingua has come a long way since that first chili cook off. Some of the roads are now paved and there are several motels, gas stations, stores and a new post office building.  Business warriors and moneyed elites from Austin and Georgetown have started buying up property and refurbishing structures into weekend retreats. A private airport has been built. The little ghost town far from anywhere even has Wi-Fi. Progress has arrived.

Terlingua Store

Some folks, like myself, would rather civilization and progress not touch this place. I selfishly would like for it to stay the way it is in my memory, the way it was when I first made trips here in the 1970's.  If I could, I'd tie an anvil to the feet of time in Terlingua, causing it to drag forward slowly, ever so slowly. For now, it's still a cool little town, but it ain't what it was. 

Terlingua Cemetery grave

Old abandoned wagon

The Terlingua Cemetery dates from the early 1900's.
Final resting place for miners & residents who
died in mine accidents, gunfights & the
influenza epidemic of 1918. Very few died
of old age.

 

 

Postcard From Big Bend National Park

In far southwest Texas is a great expanse of raw, untamed land. Within this vast area is one of America's least accessible and least visited national parks. The native Americans who once ruled this realm told a story of how the Great Creator, after forming the rest of the world, saw that he had a lot of odds and ends left over. To get rid of the excess, he simply threw it down in one big area. That area is Big Bend.

Within the 801,163 acre park, flora and fauna is as diverse as any place on the planet. There are numerous species, like the Chisos oak and the Chisos agave, that grow nowhere else on earth. It's not rare even today for botanists and zoologists to announce they have found within park boundaries a heretofore unknown plant or species of animal.

The twin peaks known as The Mule Ears

A portion of the Rio Grande River runs in the park and serves as the boundary between the United States and Mexico. Vertical walls of rock rising 1,600 feet straight up towards heaven form canyons and line much of the Mexico side. Standing beside the water with your head held back looking up toward the top of those cliffs makes one feel very small and insignificant. The enormity of the landscape relieves you of any immediate responsibilities or worries; it simply denies the importance of man-made problems.

Sometimes the sheer magnitude of nature is so incredible, so beyond imagination, expression in words is futile. You will no doubt bring back souvenirs of your visit; books, pamphlets, some rocks from the banks of the Rio Grande, and pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. The pictures will bring back memories and the memories will prove to be the greatest souvenir of all.

Purple Prickly Pear cactus

The sparsely travelled road through the park.

Cactus in bloom

Agave plants, also known as the "Century Plant"
only blooms at the end of a 25 year cycle
and then dies. It looks like it came straight
out of a Dr. Seuss book.

One of the many hiking trails in the park.

Remains of the Boquillas Hot Springs, a former
resort developed in 1909, can be hiked to via
a 1/2 mile trail after a 2-mile drive down a
rough, narrow wash in a high-clearance
vehicle. Relax in the 105 degree water next
 to the gurgling Rio Grande River and
soak your cares away.

The Rio Grande River looking from Texas
into Mexico.

The mouth of Santa Elena Canyon and the
sheer cliffs formed by the Rio Grande. Hard to
imagine all of this was once underwater (a few
million years ago) but it was. Ancient marine
fossils can be found on top of the cliffs. 

Santa Elena Canyon at sunset.

Sunset in Big Bend. The end of another
wonderful day.

Postcard from McDonald Observatory

On top of Mount Locke and Mount Fowlkes in far West Texas, one of the darkest places in the world, is the McDonald Observatory. Protected under the multiple silver and white domes are large, extremely complicated yet incredibly sensitive instruments that allow mankind to study planets, comets, asteroids, stars and galaxies millions of light years away.

William Johnson McDonald was born on a farm outside the small town of Howland, Texas in 1844. In 1864, when he was 20, he left college and joined the Confederate army. After surviving several battles, he returned after the war ended and graduated in 1867. During this time he developed a deep interest in astronomy, botany, zoology, and geology.

After getting his degree, he supported himself for the next two or three years by teaching school while studying law. He opened a law office in Clarksville in 1881 and became recognized as one of the best civil lawyers of Northeast Texas. He also prospered financially as he served as president of banks that he organized in Clarksville, Paris, and Cooper.

Despite his wealth, he continued to work hard and live modestly. A life-long bachelor, he did not attend social functions and took no part in public affairs. He did, however, make numerous contributions to charity and helped a number of young men get an education. He eventually hired trusted men to operate his banks and traveled to Europe and Mexico, as well as various places in the United States. In 1895 and 1896 he studied botany in summer school at Harvard University.

McDonald never married. He died at his home in Paris, Texas on February 8, 1926, leaving an estate of over a million dollars, the bulk of which he bequeathed to the University of Texas to establish an observatory. His heirs contested the will, and the university eventually made an out-of-court settlement by which it received $800,000.

By 1934, the university used the funds to establish McDonald Observatory. Its 82-inch telescope, the 2nd largest in the world at that time, was used to make many new discoveries, including new moons around Uranus and Neptune in the late 1940's. In the mid-1960's, NASA granted five million dollars to the McDonald Observatory to help build a new reflector telescope with a 107-inch lens which, once again, was one of the largest in the world. In 1997, a 9.2 meter aperture telescope was dedicated. Today, it is still the 5th largest telescope of its kind in the world.

There are numerous programs and tours available for anyone interested, everything from a daytime safe look through a telescope at the sun (about 45 minutes, tickets are $5) through "Star Parties" which include a 1-hour educational program,  constellation touring, telescope viewing, and other presentations (3 - 4 hours, tickets are $12 with a discount for seniors and military). Over 40,000 people attend these events every year and space is limited so be sure to buy your tickets as far in advance as possible.

 

Postcard from a Frontier Fort - Ft. Davis, Texas

Entrance to Fort Davis

An important post in the defense of frontier Texas, Fort Davis played a major role in the history of the Southwest. Between 1854 until 1891, its troops protected emigrants, freighters, mail coaches, and travelers on the San Antonio-El Paso Road on their way to the gold fields of California. Fort Davis is now considered one of the best examples of a frontier military post in the American Southwest.

Named for Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, the fort was first garrisoned by six companies of the Eighth U.S. Infantry. Constructed in a box canyon near Limpia Creek on the eastern side of the Davis Mountains, wood, water, and grass were plentiful. From 1854 to 1861, the soldiers spent much of their time in the field pursuing Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches. With the outbreak of the Civil War and Texas' secession from the Union, the federal government evacuated Fort Davis. The fort was then occupied by Confederate troops until they abandoned it in the summer of 1862 and Fort Davis was deserted for the next five years.

Ruins of Ft. Davis

In June 1867, four companies of the Ninth U.S. Cavalry reoccupied Fort Davis and construction of a new fort just east of the original post began. By the end of 1869, a number of officers' quarters, two enlisted men's barracks, a guardhouse, temporary hospital, and storehouses had been erected. Construction continued through the 1880's until there were more than 100 structures, including quarters for more than 400 soldiers.

The primary role of safeguarding the west Texas frontier against the Comanches and Apaches continued until 1881, but the last major military campaign involving troops from Fort Davis occurred in 1880. The Comanche had been driven from the area several years earlier and in a series of engagements, units from Fort Davis and other posts forced the Apaches and their leader Victorio into Mexico. There, Victorio and most of his followers were killed by Mexican soldiers. With no more Indians to fight, garrison life at Fort Davis became routine and often boring for long stretches of time. Occasionally, the soldiers were called upon to escort railroad survey parties, repair dirt roads and telegraph lines, and pursue Mexican bandits and horse thieves. In June 1891, Fort Davis was once again abandoned as it had "outlived its usefulness." Over the subsequent years, many of the structures were stripped for lumber and building materials by area ranchers and the site decayed in the harsh West Texas sun. However, some of the buildings were utilized as homes and these were kept in repair and can be seen today in their original condition.

In 1961, the fort was authorized as a national historic site and restoration work began. Today there are 24 buildings fully restored (some are furnished with historically correct furniture and objects) and more than 100 ruins to explore. For those interested in frontier history, this is a must see. Of course, for a site that is over 160 years old, there are many interesting stories. There's even a reported haunting which you can read about on our sister site by clicking here. Ft. Davis is definitely out "in the boonies," but it is well worth the effort to get there.

2-story officer's quarters

Ft. Davis parade grounds. Officer's quarters
to the left.