Texas Parks & Wildlife, Volume 67, Number 10, October 2009 Page: 21
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Hemphill County the road-kill count
inspires Elliott to raise a truly existential
question: If all the turkey vultures were
killed, what would eat their carcasses?
Seven miles outside Canadian a dinosaur
stands sentinel on a high bluff. It is Audrey,
the yellow-spotted, 50-foot, one-ton steel
mesh and concrete brontosaur-of-sorts
built by rancher Gene Cockrell in honor of
his wife, Audrey. It is a love token second
only to the Taj Mahal.
Beyond Canadian's highway storefronts
is a serenity that's more hometown than
tourist destination. We'd expected the Fall
Foliage Festival to mean traffic jams and
crowded restaurants, but the event is more
like a big family reunion. There's a huge
arts and crafts show, barbecue and home
tours. But the main draw is the foliage, best
enjoyed in a leisurely drive along the 12
miles of farm road to Lake Marvin.
We head to the edge of town and walk the
bridge. The Canadian River Wagon Bridge
was constructed in 1916 to a length of 2,635
feet. When the river changed course in
1924, the bridge was lengthened to its cur-
rent 3,255 feet. Considered the longest
metal truss span in the state (a technology
replaced by riveted connections), it is truly
a bridge to nowhere, a favored spot for
strolling with babies and binoculars. Alonethere, as we were, it's a long wood-planked
stretch of splendid isolation.
As we walk, the drone of wasps and
cicadas grows hypnotic. Elliott, happier
than I've seen him in days, reemerges
from the distance, breathless, to
announce a giant spider web. "It feels like
it never ends," he pants, as we retrace his
steps to the glinting treasure.
The once mighty Canadian River appears
near the far end of the bridge, a muddy S-
turn moving swiftly only in a narrow chan-
nel, while lazier waters ripple across sand-
bars. Beneath the bridge, swallow nests like
adobe cliff dwellings remind me that
humans carved out shelter along the bluffs
of the river in the early 12th century.
Elliott stops to eye a stink bug that puts the
length of the bridge in a new perspective:
"Think what that walk would be like to him,"
he says.Day Two
Rising early, I recognize a sweet, earthy
feedlot smell that I associate with Stock Show
week in Fort Worth. In Canadian, it is a
scent as central to the town's well-being as
the smells of natural gas throughout the
county. Thanks to the Anadarko Basin,
Canadian enjoys the prosperity of the
largest natural-gas well in the world.
But the town's robustness also reflects its
spirited frontier heritage. The red-bricked
Main Street is witnessing a $1.3 million
renovation; silk-stocking historic houses
boast museum quality art (specifically the
famed Citadelle, a former Baptist church
that is now home to the Malouf Abraham
family, longtime town patrons); the fully
restored Palace Theatre has a state-of-the-
art sound system. The town that in the
880s had 13 saloons and no churches now
has ii churches and no saloons.d.
at sunrise. Right: The
WM.Lower f:A
picturesque barn at
Gene Ho1 MTEXAS PARKS & WILDLIFE * 21
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Texas. Parks and Wildlife Department. Texas Parks & Wildlife, Volume 67, Number 10, October 2009, periodical, October 2009; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth641673/m1/25/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.