Welcome to our “From the Archives” series! Each Saturday we’ll give you a glimpse into our inventory of unusual items or items with an interesting history. If you can’t wait until next week, you might want to head over to https://www.genealogybank.com/explore/obituaries/all/usa/texas/galveston/galveston-county-daily-news to have a look at more archives from Texas and see what history you can uncover.
This week: Our unadorned Pegasus statue!
You’ve seen them around town: the Pegasus statues painted by various artists and installed somewhere for public enjoyment. Well, we have an unpainted one!
First, a quick explanation: Newcomers to Dallas may not realize that Pegasus (the winged horse) is a symbol of Dallas. A large Pegasus sits at the top of the Magnolia Building downtown, and for years it was the first thing you would see as you approached Dallas. The Magnolia Pegasus has two sides because, as the story goes, no one wanted Dallas to be a one-horse town.
This then is the reason Pegasus was chosen for the theme of a 2001 project called “Dallas Soars!” Two hundred fiberglass statues were made and decorated. Sponsors were enlisted to donate thousands of dollars for a statue that was then placed somewhere for the public’s enjoyment. The result was stunning. Beautifully decorated Pegasus statues are placed throughout the city, a symbol of civic pride.
As it turns out, not all of the statues ended up getting decorated. So the agency that had coordinated the project graciously donated a plain statue to Pegasus Theatre. Our plan was to display the statue in some decorated form in our lobby of our Main Street space.
But life intervened. Shortly after receiving the horse, we left our Main Street space under the pressure of an outrageous rent increase. But we weren’t willing to give up the statue or the dream that it would one day adorn the lobby of a new space. So we kept it.
This isn’t the end of the story. We’ve had various discussions about decorating the statue and displaying it in the lobby of the Eisemann Center during the run of our Living Black & White™ show. Now if only we can agree on how to decorate it…
Stay tuned for more of our “From the Archives” series!