A statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that was removed from a Dallas park in 2017 is now on full display at a West Texas golf course, the Houston Chronicle reported.
The statue, a 1935 sculpture created Alexander Phimister Proctor, and depicted Lee and another soldier on horseback. It was removed from the Dallas city park and kept in storage at Hensley Field, a former Naval Air Station, before the Dallas city council sold it at auction for $1.4 million in 2019, according to the Dallas Morning News.
While authorities were hesitant to allow another party to own the statue, they agreed to the sale on two conditions. First, the statue had to be sold for more than the $450,000 to have it removed and second, the statue could not be displayed in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area.
Local attorney Addison Holmes purchased the statue, then donated it to Lajitas. The statue is now sitting, and visible at the Lajitas Golf Resort in Terlingua, Texas, which is near the Big Bend National Park and the Rio Grande. Lajitas is owned by pipeline mogul and Dallas billionaire Kelcy Warren and managed by Scott Beasley, president of DWSB Resorts and Clubs.
Warren and Beasley said they’re proud to display the statue, which greets guest at the 18-hole golf course, Black Jack’s Crossing, along the border between Texas and Mexico. Beasley told the Chronicle that the statue is up just to preserve “a fabulous piece of art,” and claims the resort rarely hears a complain about the statue.
“I would say that of the 60-plus thousand guest we host each year, we’ve had one or two negative comments, “Beasley said. “I’d bet that 80 to 90 per-cent of the people that come to the resort take a picture of it.”
