Canyon, TX Photo - The deteriorating Remains of Tex Randall, a Very Big Texan (47 feet Tall and Weighing Seven tons) erected in The City of Canyon in The Texas.

The deteriorating remains of "Tex Randall," a very big Texan (47 feet tall and weighing seven tons) erected in the city of Canyon in the Texas Panhandle by industrial-arts teacher Harry Wheeler in 1959. Tex is constructed of concrete, with an internal structure of pipe, rebar, and wire mesh. He originally wore real denim jeans and a red checkered shirt, courtesy of a local tent and awning store. He casually held a giant cigarette in one hand. His sturdy design has helped him survive 100-mph winds, along with a network of steel struts and cable anchoring him to the ground. As he aged, Tex was hobbled when a semi-trailer truck smashed one of his feet, and later a sniper shot away his smoke. A local restoration campaign saved the giant cowpoke in 1989 when a spur tastefully replaced the dangling cigarette, and another such effort was underway as of the date of this photograph (in 2014).

Carol M. Highsmith (born 1946) is a photographer, author, and publisher who has photographed all 50 of the United States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico for 30 years. She specializes in documenting architecture, ranging from the monumental to the everyday and whimsical. Highsmith is donating her life ’s work of more than 100,000 images, copyright-free, to the Library of Congress, which established a rare one-person archive. Out of 14 million images, the Carol M. Highsmith collection is featured in the top six alongside of Mathew Brady and Dorethea Lange. Credit line: Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Credit line: The Lyda Hill Texas Collection of Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.