New sculptures in Shafter capture early ranch life
When John Poindexter, Cibolo Creek Ranch owner, and Tom Davis, the ranch manager, set out to restore a series of buildings in the Shafter Ghost Town, they also decided to add touches of the past—1920s cars, wagons, farm and ranch equipment—that surround structures like the old Howell Store, the historic church and the post office. The ultimate vision is to create a walking museum of sorts open to the public in the town on Highway 67, 40 miles south of Marfa.
In the past few weeks, a new series of installations—bronze sculptures depicting a wild side of the West in the late 1800s by Utah artist Scott Rogers—have arrived, further enhancing the town as a place for tourists to stop. With the historic buildings and the towering Cienega Mountains as their background, the bronzes include a stern lawman, a trail boss, a vaquero, vaquero on a horse, a roundup cowboy, and a “man of his word.”
Rogers says his sculptures, including these pieces, are about 80% of life size, although a larger-than-life-size Chiricahua Apache is set to arrive in Shafter this week.
Rogers also created about 20 Old-West sculptures that adorn the grounds of the Cibolo Creek Ranch resort to the northwest of Shafter. The artist, who works from a studio in Paradise, Utah, says he had a rather unusual career shift that launched him into sculpture 36 years ago. After working in the financial world with his father raising venture capital for several years, he was inspired by a visit to his uncle.
“My uncle was one of the greatest sculptors that ever lived, and his name was Grant Speed,” Rogers recalls. “I bought a sculpture of Grant’s in the spring of 1990 … I came home from work one day, and my heart just leapt through my chest, and I went and bought clay and started that night. Four years later, I was making my living at it.”
Rogers says it’s hard to define how long he sculpts each piece, although in general it’s about three to four months. “The longer I have, the better they are,” he says. “So, it’s really not a matter of how long it takes. It’s a matter of when they’re finished. And so, I’ll work on a piece for a month, and then I won’t look at it for a month, and then I’ll work on it for a month, and then I won’t look at it for a month, and then I come back and visit it fresh.”
Shafter was a silver mining town throughout the late 1800s and up to the 1940s when declining silver prices forced the mine to close. At its heyday in the 1920s and 1930s, up to 4,000 people lived in the area, but throughout time and between mine startups and shutdowns, Shafter’s population of about 25 people are scattered through the hills. Four people live in the heart of the ghost town, now neighbors of the sculptures.
Rogers has visited Shafter and Cibolo Creek Ranch in the past, but is looking forward to seeing his work accompany all of the historic renovation. “I haven’t seen any of the renovation yet, except on the Internet,” he says. I would really enjoy coming out there and seeing what [Poindexter] has done in Shafter.”
