Although much ballyhooed late last year, a proposed giant statue of a gun-toting Texas Ranger has been killed by the Waco, Texas, City Council. The statue would have stood aside I-35 in front of the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame.

Proponents of the statue said that it would do for Waco what the giant statue of Sam Houston did for Huntsville, Texas -- give people something nice to associate with the town. When the Sam Houston statue went up in 1994, Huntsville was mostly known as the place where Texas carried out its prisoner executions. Waco faces a similar problem, being known primarily as the place where the Branch Davidian massacre took place (although Texans usually associate it with the birthplace of Dr Pepper). The citizens of Huntsville, when asked, said that the Sam Houston statue did a good job of making people forget about all of their electrocutions and lethal injections. The big Texas Ranger seemed poised to do the same for Waco.

Sculptor David Adickes had promised the city that the statue would not be quite as tall as Sam Houston -- who must stand taller than any Texan -- but that the statue would still rise close to 70 feet high.

Supporters of the statue blamed the Waco Tribune for its demise. According to the head of the statue committee, the newspaper published a photo "deliberately exaggerating the statue's size so that it appeared to be 170 feet tall."

[02/11/2008]