Outside of Hunt,
Texas
sits Stonehenge II, a copy of the original Stonehenge located more
than 3,500 miles away on the Salisbury Plain in England.
Sixty percent
as large as the original, the
Texas Stonehenge was built by
Al Sheppard and Doug Hill, two visionary
Texas cowboys with money to
spend and time to spare.
It all started when Doug Hill had finished
pouring a patio in 1989. Left with a spare slab of limestone, he
offered it to his friend and neighbor, Al Sheppard.
Sheppard liked how
the stone looked and soon planted it upright on his property, but he
wasn’t sure people could see it from the road. From there, Al
and Doug built a 13-foot arch behind the monolith and that was
just the beginning. Soon, a whole circle of "stones” began to
rise from the earth.
Doug Hill began to
fabricate stone "look-alikes” from steel, metal lathe and plaster.
Painted and anchored with cement, these fabrications look like the
real thing. After about nine months, their masterpiece was
complete. Or, so they thought.
No, some eighteen months later, two 13-foot-tall Easter Island
look-alikes were added, standing silently guarding the Stonehenge
masterpiece.
Al
Sheppard passed away in 1994, but the property remains in his family
who continues to extend Sheppard’s invitation to pay a visit.
Directions: 60 miles west of San
Antonio, South off I-10, Kerrville Exit 506 to Hwy 39 to Farm Road
1340.
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of America, © February, 2005
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