Barclay Gibson's Texas Travel. (original) (raw)

BARCLAY GIBSON

Statewide Photographer

Barclay Gibson over 120,000 miles photographing Texas

Williams Ranch Williams Ranch 6-3-13 Guadalupe Mountains National Park Culberson County
Grave marker Finding the Polancio Grave Marker 3-22-10 "Back in the 1870s a stage was attacked by Indians and a man, Jose Maria Palancios, was killed. He was buried right where he fell, at the base of the Peak and a crude rock slab had the information scratched on it."

The Quest
Mr. Gibson has driven all over Texas many times in search of the 1936 Texas Centennial Markers. Here are a few of his stories:

Pulaski Searching for the Pulaski Historical Marker 9-6-10 Where to start describing how I visited the five foot tall granite 1936 Panola County Centennial Historical Marker for the defunct town site of Pulaski, former seat of Panola County?
"I Want to See Your Machete" 5-29-12 It was a momentous occasion for me... I was finally going to meet Ruthie Cade. Literally minutes before, I had been able to find, after a previous failed attempt, the gray granite Centennial Marker placed at the grave of Perry Alsbury in a hidden, overgrown area within earshot of I-10. That marker was the 1,089th marker I have seen of the 1,136 placed way back in 1936 to memorialize the multi-year celebration of Texas' Independence from Mexico. Here I was, after having seen nearly 96% of that total, meeting the one person who made a lot of that search possible.

The Journey Begins

�Do you want these?� My sister, Peggy, had walked into our partnership office with three Walmart bags under each arm. Each bag contained a year of Texas Highway Magazines. She was clearing out her closet and decided not to keep them any longer. Rather than just toss them out, she asked me if I wanted them.

For the past several years three of my sisters and I had taken road trips around Texas. Peggy did all the planning while I did the driving. Ann and Betty Jean tagged along not caring particularly where we went but just enjoying our time together. Peggy used the magazines as a resource of places to visit. On different trips we went to the usual tourist spots like Sea World, The Big Bend, Galveston, Port Aransas and Jefferson. It was in Jefferson that I first began to really appreciate the uniqueness of Texas, but it was no big deal to me at the time.

Peggy had decided she didn�t need to keep the magazines any more, and not using better judgment, I said that we could just put them in our office attic. About that time, I began reading James Michener�s novel, �Texas�, so it was natural that in a few months I began to drag out a few copies of the old magazines to see if I could find anything familiar that I might have read about in the book.

That�s how it all started. Now, ten years later I have driven over 120,000 miles in Texas and taken over 70,000 pictures of everything from old country churches to courthouses and jails to bridges and signs, and finally of nearly all of the Texas Centennial markers that were placed all around the state back in 1936. But that�s a whole �nother story.

One can only wonder what I would be doing right now if my sister had just tossed those magazines without asking me about them. I�d probably be working on a stamp collection or such but not having nearly as much fun.

- Barclay Gibson,

April 2013

Three Poems by David Knape:

Bar-Clay God was thinking one fine day, why not another man of clay so he took some parts he'd thrown away, and formed them into a bar of clay he rolled them up into a batch, though the parts would not all match still it was good in its own way, God kept the thing named it Bar-Clay now Bar-Clay wasn't satisfied, he wanted something else to try God got upset at Bar-Clays nerve, sent him to Texas with time to serve now Barclay's doomed his dreaded fate, to ride the backroads of the state and in his travels can be found forever lost and turned around yet who can say his penance done Bar-Clay's the one who's havin' fun for Bar-Clay now accepts his fate, travelin' the state for Texas Escapes! - d.knape THE PICTURE-TAKIN' MAN O'er hills he roams in his trusty truck with his camera on and a little luck He'll photograph a town or two takin' pictures of all without revenue Following trails and rumors ghost stories too each town like a treasure found out of the blue Still the search is his passion Oh the memories he makes for love of Texas and its wild escapes! - d.knape Upcoming Attractions He plied the highways always blessed to travel Texas from one end to the next, An inquiring mind the lone pretext to photograph what might come next. - d.knape
Special Feature Four Bridges / Three States 11-3-08 Chevelon Canyon Bridge Winslow Arizona, Querino Canyon Bridge on Old Route 66 Houck Arizona, Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay Redding California, and Yaquina Bay Bridge Newport Oregon.

Texas Towns - Courthouses, Jails, Centennial Markers, Churches, Signs, Murals...