Paint Rock, Texas

cbyusBy Charlotte Byus
Next time you are in Fredericksburg and have a day to spare, head up Highway 87 to Mason, Texas. There is a Fort Mason there with lots of history and a beautiful view of the hill country. Several nice shops in town and a really good cafe for lunch. Travel on down 87 to Brady and take Highway 83 right to Paint Rock, Texas.

Now, this town does not even have a stop sign or a signal light but it has so much more. When we were there, we stopped into a wool mill shop where they were making wool rugs by looms. CB_2017-0221-1So very interesting and nice people. As we were watching the rug making, the owner of the store asked if we knew Ms Campbell, we said no, should we? Well, she was the owner of the ranch that houses all the Indian rock painting along the creek. He called Ms Campbell, and she invited us to her home. Ms Campbell was an Art History Teacher at Texas Tech, now retired. He gave us instruction to get to the ranch and off we went. She had the gate open for us and was waiting at the ranch home for us. We introduced ourselves and headed into her art studio.

You never know what you will find, but we hit a gold mine very few people will ever be able to see. We sat down at her table and she began showing us how the Indians made the ink to make these pictographs. The pictographs were a story of the time spent along the creek every year they returned to the area. The pictographs were like our words, they related to incidents, leaving messages or map-like meanings.

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There were over fifteen stops where these drawings were on the side of the hills and rock sides of the area. They made both black and red pigments. A very impressive design which resembled a boat could have been a story a particular Indian saw along the coast or a river. There were sun symbols, there were tally marks next to a picture of a buffalo – there seemed to be an abundance of buffalo in this region.

At our last stop there were many drawings, from counting the animals or people killed, ceremonial figures with arms upraised, a four-horned figure believed to be a leader wearing buffalo horns in his headdress. The most impressive drawing at the bluff was a painting believed to represent Mission San Clemente, built in 1685 by the Franciscans to Christianize the Lipan Apaches.

I am sure by this time the lovely Ms Campbell, who shared her land with my sister and I, has long gone to the art world in the sky. Maybe the ranch is now open for tours.

You never know what you will see in this great state of Texas.

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