About 18 months ago, Lynna Shuffield came across a newspaper article from the late 1930s while doing some family research. It reported that construction of Houston’s City Hall building had just been completed, but two things were left out – two bronze, life-sized statues of the Allen Brothers.
The architect had intended for them to stand on the building’s eastern terrace.
“And in 1939 — November 1939 — Mayor Holcombe announced that, regretfully, money had run out for the funding of the project,” Shuffield says. “And the statues of the Allen Brothers would not be placed on the pedestal.”
So, they were never sculpted.
Seventy-five years later, Shuffield approached her fellow members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and suggested they raise $100,000 to finish the project.
But how does an artist create a life-sized sculpture of someone who lived 170 years ago?
“There’s a physical description of the men from family records,” Shuffield says. “Then we had engraving images that were of the men taken at the time period of their life.”
Houston artist Lori Betz was commissioned for the project. The Allen Brothers statues are on display at the Clayton Library for Genealogical Research in the Museum District until October 31st, before moving to their permanent home at City Hall. A public event celebrating the installation is set for the end of October.
