This little spot is where Davy Crockett stopped in Jan 1835 to take a drink from a spring and camp pvernight. Crockett was on his way to San Antonio and the Alamo, where he would become a legend.
The mural depicts a meeting between two men who knew each other in Tennessee, Davy Crockett and A. E. Gossett.
Gossett also left Tennessee for Texas in the mid-1830s. Gossett settled his family near Crockett TX. Crockett was a new settlement on the El Camino Real, literally "The King's Road", that passed through Texas. El Camino Real was the early 1800s equivalent of an interstate highway today. The route of El Camino Real is preserved in modern Texas today primarily on State Highway 21.
While Gossett's cabin is lost to history, a cabin similar to the style of cabin that he would have built has been moved to Brewer Park, site the the Davy Crockett Spring and a new mural along SH 21 at the edge of downtown Crockett.
From the city of Crockett's website (with some edits for clarity): (
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Crockett was charted by the French trader, St. Denis, on his travels west to Spanish Mexico in 1715 on the El Camino Real.
Empresario Joseph Vehlein located families here in the late 1820's and built a stagecoach stop, a trading post and log fortress for protection at the site, which edged virgin pines and hardwoods between the Neches and Trinity Rivers.
These pioneer stalwarts joined the Texas freedom fight in the 1830s, which attracted Davy Crockett, who camped at a nearby spring in January 1836, in route to the Alamo.
After winning independence from Mexico, the pioneer residents sought to become a county, and by order of President Sam Houston on June 12, 1837, created the first county of the new Texas Republic.
Needing a county seat, A.E. Gossett gave land from his survey for a townsite. He and his father, Elijah, who had seen his former Tennessee neighbor Crockett at his campsite, were given the privilege of naming the new county and town: Houston for their General at the Battle of San Jacinto and the first President of the Republic, and Crockett for their former neighbor who had given his life for freedom.
An act of the Republic of Texas incorporated the new town, built around the traditional Spanish square, on December 29, 1837. Crockett's City government was reorganized in the 1870 during reconstruction and continued until the Home Rule Charter was approved in 1960.
The fifth Houston County Courthouse, built in 1938, centers downtown Crockett around which a network of state and U.S. highways carry travelers and trade and connects the crossroads city of Crockett with the world." [end]
The mural itself is very eye-catching and interesting visually. The bright colors and bold shapes give a good idea of the dense pine and hardwood forests that existed here in the 1820s, and still exist today. The spring flows into a nice pool in the background.
The image depicts the moment that old acquiantances from Tennessee meet up at what is now known as the Crockett Spring, a spring on Gossett's land where Crockett camped in 1835 as he made his way to San Antonio. Crockett's two traveling companions are feeding the campfire with gathered firewood and making the campsite.
The look on Gossett's face makes us wonder if the mural is capturing that moment where he finds folks on bis land, before realizing that one of the campers is Crockett. Crockett is extending his hand, but Gossett is not smiling and has not extended his hand yet. Gossett is holding the reins of his horse with one hand and his rifle with the other.
The sharp-angular faces of Gossett and Crockett attest to the difficulties of life on the frontier. Crockett is dressed in his famous buckskins and coonskin cap. Crockett's traveling companions are wearing period-correct clothing. Gossett is dressed in a homespun shirt and leather cape very common on the dense, brushy, thorny frontier.
This mural almost could be a photograph, it looks so much like a possible human interaction on the frontier.