Cable news would have loved this.
Bonus: I’m having a challenging day. My car died over by Hobby Airport and I wound up having to leave it in a parking lot not far from the intersection of Telephone and Airport. When I went inside the building to let them know why my car was there and that a tow truck was coming for it, they could not have been any kinder. It turned out to be the apprentice training facility for the Steelworkers and I noticed that the building was named after someone: Deke Bullen. Well, I couldn’t help but be curious about this fellow. I couldn’t find too much but what I did find is very interesting. Deke Bullen was the construction supervisor on the San Jacinto Monument. Here’s a Houston Chronicle article about the design and construction of the star, and here’s a picture from the article with Bullen on top of it. He’s on the right and that’s the architect, Alfred Finn, on the left. Here’s a Rice connection—if you read the article, it mentions sculptor William McVey, ’28, who did the reliefs on the monument.
Albert Patrick was eventually disbarred in New York in 1930, but between his pardon in 1912 and disbarment in 1930 he was a practicing lawyer. He may have continued to practice in Oklahoma when he left New York, but I’m not sure about that. Although I haven’t been able to find anything about his legal career online this afternoon, I have a recollection that at some point he was representing a client (perhaps before the US Supreme Court) and the opposing counsel referred to Mr. Patrick as a murderer. Not surprisingly, such an allegation brought an immediate rebuke from the Court, until Patrick was forced to admit that he had, in fact, been convicted of murder.
Does even the thought of being on that platform atop the San Jacinto Monument give you chills?
I’d like to know a) how they got up there, and (b) how they took the picture.
I’m with Grungy, even though I have done some climbing, there is no amount of money that would get me in that basket. I too share Grungy’s questions.
Seriously, I get sick even thinking about it. But I am interested in how they did this—-I’ll go find out. It turns out that Bullen wrote a short account of the monument’s construction and I’m working on getting my hands on a copy even as we speak.
I eagerly await.
I forwarded the blog to Larry Spasic, president of the San Jacinto Museum of History. I’m pretty sure he can provide you with the answer.