A Friend - Ballinger, TX
N 31° 44.939 W 099° 56.825
14R E 410297 N 3513003
Statue of "A Friend" with a long history from gas stations to dumps to city parks.
Waymark Code: WMP4EP
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 06/29/2015
Views: 8
The statue in Ballinger Texas' City Park has a unique history. In November of 2008, a sixth grade teacher named Cinnamon Carter began to ask her students and research on the disappearance of a statue that used to sit atop Indian Hill in the city park. As it turns out, the statue was from a Wirt Franklin gas station located in Ardmore, OK at the corner of Main and S.W. D Street. Mr. Elmer Shepperd, the mayor of Ballinger, purchased the statue in 1939. Mr. Sheppard had seen them in Oklahoma during family reunions and wanted one for the newly created Ballinger City Park. Local sources believe the statue to have been destroyed by vandals and dumped in the local river in the mid 1950s. The students began to really push to replace the statue.
In February 2009 the city council began to support the cause. As more information came in, it was discovered that about 50 of them had been made for gas stations in the 1920s and 30s. According to National Petroleum News (April 24, 1929), the Indian statues were an advertising ploy developed by D. A. Corcoran, head of Wirt-Franklin's sales department. In order to get one of the statues, gas station owners had to carry Wirt-Franklin's Palacine gasoline and oil brands exclusively. The Palacine Oil Company had them made of zinc alloy molded into shape by Fiedley and Voshort of Chicago. Only four were thought to exist. Three are at the Woolarac Museum that were purchased by Frank Phillips of Phillips 66. None of the statues located were available. In January of 2010, a man from Duncan, OK called claiming he had found a fifth statue in a trash pit. The man, Steve Hill, uncovered the statue and found he had been buried up to his calves in concrete. Carter left in August to retrieve the statue. Work is still being done to extract the statue from the concrete so he may rest atop of Indian Hill next to his new companion.
A new statue was designed by local sculptor Hugh Campbell. It was cast in bronze by Texas Bronze, a custom fine art foundry in Lubbock, TX. On April 29th, 2012, the new statue was unveiled atop Indian Hill. The class of 2015 who originally started the project along with Nell Sheppard Hambrick, daughter of Elmer Sheppard, dedicated the statue.
Name or use 'Unknown' if not known: A Friend
Figure Type: Human
Artist Name or use 'Unknown' if not known: Hugh Campbell III
Date created or placed or use 'Unknown' if not known: 27 April 2012
Materials used: Cast Bronze
Location: Ballinger City Park
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