The Gateway
An American family leaving their home and traveling down the El Camino Real de los Tejas with their dog, gun, and what would fit on their horse. They left everything they have ever known for a promise of land and a new beginning in Texas.
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In 2010, Charles Bright and other board members of The Charles and Lois Marie Bright Foundation began planning for the creation of The Gateway to honor those early Americans who traveled west on the El Camino Real to settle Texas, but also as a way to honor its founder. Charles Bright was instrumental in revitalizing downtown Nacogdoches which included the restoration of his father’s grocery store that was originally located on the square. [1 & 2]
The poem Nacogdoches Speaks by Karle Wilson Baker was the inspiration for The Gateway. I was The Gateway. Here they came, and passed, The homespun centaurs with their arms of steel And taut heart-strings: wild wills, who thought to deal Bare-handed with jade Fortune, tracked at last Out of her silken lairs into the vast Of a Man’s world. They passed, but still I feel The dint of hoof, the print of booted heel, Like prick of spurs--the shadows that they cast. I do not vaunt their valors, or their crimes: I tell my secrets only to some lover, Some taster of spilled wine and scattered musk. But I have not forgotten; and sometimes, The things that I remember rise, and hover. A sharper perfume in some April dusk. [3] The Gateway stands in downtown Nacogdoches in front of the Charles Bright Visitor Center. Texan artist Michael Boyett (1943-2015) sculpted the statue. The Charles and Lois Marie Bright Foundation commissioned The Gateway, and its dedication was in February 2013. [4] |
Charles Bright Describes the Plans for The Gateway
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