Houston, TX - The Orange Show
Posted by: 
JimmyEv
N 29° 43.068 W 095° 19.458
15R E 275163 N 3289777
A postman bizarrely obsessed with the Orange created this fantastical whimsy of folk art, a colorful maze of platforms, stairs, decks, seating, stages and amphitheaters, all extolling the virtues of the Orange.
Waymark Code: WM10W2
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 12/06/2006
Views: 20
In the movie,
Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner plows under a corn field to build a ball field. Everyone thinks he’s crazy. But a little voice kept telling him, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ At the end of the movie, they came – in droves. The same voice apparently spoke to a Houston postman in 1962. That’s when Jeff McKissack began building the Orange Show on two lots across from his house. He worked on his creation for 17 years, building the entire structure with plans inside his head. He used umbrellas, stadium benches, tractor seats, and lots of wheels. He inlaid tile to create proverbs on the walls, wrote mottos on placards, and created displays with dolls, all extolling the virtues of the Orange. He was bizarrely obsessed with the Orange. He had trucked Oranges around Florida years before, and ever since thought the Orange to be the perfect, life-giving food.
McKissack opened the Orange Show in 1979, knowing that they would come. He was prepared for crowds of hundreds of thousands of people. Everyone would want to see the Orange Show; he estimated that 80-90% of Americans would come to see his Orange Show. Unlike in the movie, there was no happy ending. On opening day 150 people showed up. Every day, every show, less and less people came. McKissack died seven months later at the age of 78. Rumor has it that McKissack specified in his will he was to be cremated, and his ashes thrown over his life-long achievement, the Orange Show.
A few years after his death, people began to recognize the Orange Show as an example of folk art. The Orange Show for Visionary Art was created to purchase the building and restore McKissack’s creation. Thanks to their efforts, for $1 you can tour this fanciful creation and wander along the maze of stairs, observation decks, wishing wells, amphitheaters, and even restrooms, reading such philosophical musings as ‘Purity. The orange is absolutely pure. It grows right out of the bloom – protected by the rind,’ and ‘Clown found happiness by drinking cold fresh orange juice every day.’ Perhaps the most fascinating area of the whole creation is the one hall devoted to the story of McKissack, the building of the Orange Show, and McKissack’s vision for the show.
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