Donnis Baggett

At a recent meeting to discuss a vision for our community, the leaders asked a thought-provoking question: What is Waco’s distinct advantage?

I’ve considered that question ever since. I always come up with the same answer, and it’s hardly original. In fact, it’s the same three-word response you get when you ask a realtor what determines the value of prime real estate: Location, location, location.

Waco is smack-dab in the middle of Texas, which is a nice place to be. But there’s more to it than that.

Tribune-Herald owner, longtime philanthropist and businessman Clifton Robinson, shown with his pet, Annie Poo, stands among maquettes of bronze sculptures that illustrate a cattle drive. The statues are located near the Waco Suspension Bridge.
Rod Aydelotte / Waco Tribune-Herald

Waco is not only centrally located in a growing state, but it’s blessed by the fact that an interstate runs through it. And so does a river. A river that offers not only natural beauty, but a grand setting for the works of man. The gorgeous grounds of Baylor University and Cameron Park are testimony to that.

Our central location and our major highway are distinct advantages, but civic leaders in landlocked cities everywhere would kill for a water feature with the potential of the Brazos River. As the leaders of Waco and Baylor sketch plans for our future, the river undoubtedly will be the main canvas. That’s clear in discussions about the potential of a new riverside stadium for Baylor and a downtown performing arts center. Those two “bookends” of civic development would undoubtedly generate tremendous growth in between — especially on the waterfront — and would offer great potential for public art along the Brazos.

As those plans are being considered, the art of tomorrow is taking shape today.

On Thursday afternoon, Clifton Robinson — businessman, philanthropist, Baylor regent and owner of the Tribune-Herald — stood at the Waco Suspension Bridge and soaked in the beauty of Indian Spring Park. He chatted about how he has jogged along the Brazos almost daily for 47 years, and every time he runs, he dreams of a five-mile-long sculpture trail stretching from Cameron Park to Baylor and back.

Part of that trail is becoming reality now as “Branding the Brazos,” a bigger-than-life bronze panorama of a Texas cattle drive, is being installed at the foot of the bridge. The statues of cowboys and cattle by Glen Rose sculptor Robert

Summers are the first fruits of Clifton’s artistic vision for Waco — a vision which began, oddly enough, in downtown Dallas, where Summers created another cattle drive panorama.

“We had an office on South Ervay, and I used to go down to Pioneer Plaza at lunch time and admire those longhorns,” Clifton recalled. “I thought at the time: ‘The Chisholm Trail didn’t go through Dallas, it went through Waco. We need something like this in Waco.’

“I’d been thinking about that when Doreen Ravenscroft (president of Waco Cultural Arts Fest) asked me to buy a piece of public art for this area, and I told her I had a bigger project in mind than that.”

That conversation was the genesis of “Branding the Brazos,” a sculpture series of 25 longhorns and three herdsmen — “Trail Boss,” “Drover” and “Vaquero” — representing the Anglo, African-American and Hispanic cowhands typical among the crews that pushed herds up the Chisholm Trail.

The site chosen for the sculptures is historically perfect. The Suspension Bridge made it much easier for Chisholm Trail herds to cross the Brazos, and Waco prospered as a result. (Location, location, location, remember?) That being the case, it’s fitting that a cattle drive would be the centerpiece of the art trail Clifton envisions.

Clifton doesn’t propose that the entire trail be dedicated to western art, however. He’d like to see “various artists and various styles” of sculptures along other sections of the path, ranging from bronze zoo animals near Cameron Park to the cutting-edge sculpture honoring Pearl Harbor hero Doris Miller on the other side of the Brazos. Other engaging pieces of sculpture are already in place downstream. The statue of a bear outside the Baylor Law School and the bronzes of a surveyor and a Texas Ranger at Fort Fisher would fit naturally into a sculpture trail, leaving plenty of room in between for new pieces in the years to come.

Looking over maquettes of the bronzes and standing at the foot of the bigger-than-life version of “Trail Boss,” Clifton expressed thanks for the support of other civic-minded Waco leaders. He noted that some of Waco’s leading families have donated money for bronze cows, but some longhorns are still available for sponsorship.

“I think Doreen has about seven cows left to sell,” he said, ever the promoter. “So make sure you tell folks they can still buy one.”

The contract calls for the cattle drive sculptures to be complete by the end of this year. It can’t happen soon enough for Clifton.

“Waco needs a public art program, and this would be one of the finest anywhere,” he said. “This trail would showcase the monumental public art between the bookends.

“We’ve just got to have some people with imagination who want to do something with this town,” Clifton said. Then he smiled, adding: “And we’ve got a real river to work with!”

Location, location, location.

Donnis Baggett is publisher and editor of the Waco Tribune-Herald . His email address is dbaggett@wacotrib.com. His postal address is P.O. Box 2588, Waco, Texas, 76702-2588.

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