June 28, 2024
Why does a 20-foot Abe Lincoln stare at the drivers on a Houston highway?
What's up with all the giant head sculptures around town?
The experience is arresting. It may also be a driving hazard. Whether you are flying or inching down I-45 just before it hits downtown and becomes the Gulf Freeway, four giant heads pull eyes from the road to the side.
American Statesmanship Park, a little rectangular green space owned by Harris County, sits where I-45 and I-10 and their many on- and off-ramps look like nests of angel hair pasta. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Stephen F. Austin, and Sam Houston — each about 18 feet tall and weighing 2 tons — stare back dead-eyed at passersby.
The space has been nicknamed "Mount Rush Hour."
Those giant heads exude an aesthetic vibe that echoes throughout the city because they were created by David Adickes, who, at 97, is the most visible artist in Houston. Adickes owned the small plot of land hemmed in by Elder and Bingham Streets where the four Mount Rush Hour heads lived. He sold the plot and the art to a friend, who then donated the pieces to the county in 2012.
The artist behind 'Mount Rush Hour'
He was born in 1927, right as some of the city's most essential and enduring cultural institutions were born: Hermann Park, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Houston Symphony. Over the years, he has become a Houston institution.
Adickes also holds a space in Houston's counterculture history, having opened the Love Street Light Circus Feel Good Machine in June 1967. A short-lived venue, Love Street was nevertheless a beloved one for psychedelic rock 'n' roll, with a stage played by ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons.
Today, his giant Sam Houston stands 67 feet tall over I-45 just south of Huntsville. His Stephen F. Austin statue is even taller, at 76 feet. It greets those passing by the Stephen F. Austin-Munson Historical County Park off of SH 288 in Angleton.
The Eighth Wonder Brewery is home to Adickes' towering Beatles sculptures. His "Virtuoso" saws at his cello outside the Lyric Centre building downtown. It stands a mere 36 feet and weighs in at 20 tons.
Despite the heft of his work, Adickes' pieces are oddly mobile. "Big Alex" — a giant telephone honoring Alexander Graham Bell — has moved around the city and currently sits atop a warehouse at Hyde Park and Mason. An Adickes bronze of George H.W. Bush lives in Terminal C of the airport bearing that president's name.
How it all started
Adickes decision to go big with his sculpture goes back four-plus decades to a road trip to Canada to visit a friend. He stopped at Mount Rushmore and described himself as "overwhelmed" by the rocky heads. But Adickes felt Mount Rushmore was too distant. "I felt like you couldn't look them in the eyes," he said.
Adickes' art doesn't always sell quickly. Rare is the impulse buyer who simply cannot live without a sculpture of Charlie Chaplin that stands 34 feet tall. So the exterior of Adickes' Nance Street Studio is American statesmanship filtered through Easter Island.
The lot is populated by dozens of 18-foot presidential heads — Adams, Arthur, Clinton, Garfield, Jackson, Lincoln, Obama, Reagan, Taft and Truman — sitting outside in varying states of weather-related distress. A year ago, the East Aldine Management District, fittingly, acquired and dedicated a John F. Kennedy head at the intersection JFK Blvd. and Aldine Bender Road.
Major plans are in the works to find forever homes for some of Adickes' major pieces. Adickes' two "We Love Houston" sculptures — one near 8th Wonder, the other off of I-10 — are expected to be moved to new locations that should increase their visibility for Houstonians and visitors. And negotiations are underway to place 43 presidential heads, from Washington through Obama, into a public park in January 2025, timed to Adickes' 98th birthday, which would be the ultimate basket of Easter Island-y easter eggs, a legacy project to connect an artist to his hometown.
 | Andrew Dansby |
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Reader Question: Since there is a "Buffalo Bayou," were there ever buffalo in Houston? - Mark Allan
The name Buffalo Bayou was assigned by "Father of Texas" Stephen F. Austin, anglicized from Mexican maps that referred to it as "Rio Cibolo."
And, in fact, there were buffalo here. My friend and colleague Lisa Gray did the legwork for me several years ago. She wrote about a buffalo fossil that was found around Armand Bayou near Clear Lake. It was believed to be 35,000 years old, so that's going back just a bit — especially when you consider the waterway we call Buffalo Bayou was formed some 18,000 years ago. More modern buffalo were referenced in an account by Dilue Rose Harris given to the Texas State Historical Association. She recalled seeing a herd of a few thousand in Harrisburg, which is just east of our downtown, in the spring of 1836. A half-century later, a small herd in Oklahoma was as close as the buffalo roamed to Houston. Things for the buffalo didn't get better from there, as we all know.
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