Frank Klepper
KLEPPER, FRANK
Newspaper, March 3, 1934
KLEPPER’S MURAL IN LOCAL POSTOFFICE HAS HISTORIC SLANTS ON TEXAS HISTORY
“TUCKER HOTEL” CENTER OF LOCAL CIVIC AND SOCIAL LIFE BURNED 59 YEARS AGO–DEAD BODY GEN. BEN McCULLOCH REPOSED IN IT–HE WAS INDIAN FIGHTER, TEXAS INDEPENDENCE WARRIOR AND LEADER–KILLED IN BATTLE OF PEA RIDGE.
Texas should not be recreant of her obligations to her pioneers and heroic defenders and we may add that she had not been.
The subject of Klepper’s mural recently presented in the lobby of McKinney’s substantial, Federal stone post office building, “The Tucker Hotel,” is an enduring memorial of a grateful public made possible by the cooperation of the now noted Texas artist whose brush has attracted fame and admiration throughout the Southwest. The old Tucker two-story frame hotel depicted was a landmark in most the first thirty years’ history of McKinney. It stood on the northeast corner of the public square and burn, June 28, 1875, at which time the north side of the public square burned out.
Mr. Klepper obtained his knowledge of the old hotel building that burned fifty-nine years ago from Mrs. M. H. Garnett, Mr. Wick Graves and perhaps one or two others who had seen it.
Mrs. Garnett then lived in the home of her grandmother, Mrs. A. S. Hurt, whose residence stood about where Dr. F. J. Wood’s jewelry store now stands on North Tennessee street just north of the Central State bank. As a little girl, then Maggie Bounds, she remembers the conflagration quite vividly.
The Tucker Hotel was owned and operated by Jack Tucker, who also owned a big livery stable that stood across the street, south of the hotel on the spot now occupied by the McKinney Dry Goods company.
The hotel was the scene of many civic and social activities during and after the Civil War period. Mr. Klepper’s mural perpetuates the scene on the day that Gen. Ben McCulloch’s body lay in state at the hotel as it was being conveyed from the battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, where he was killed, March 8, 1862, to his home in South Texas for burial. At the same time, a company of home organized Confederate troops were being presented their colors by a young woman from the balcony of the second story of this hotel, just as the soldiers were ready to depart for the front....
Newspaper, March 3, 1934
KLEPPER’S MURAL IN LOCAL POSTOFFICE HAS HISTORIC SLANTS ON TEXAS HISTORY
“TUCKER HOTEL” CENTER OF LOCAL CIVIC AND SOCIAL LIFE BURNED 59 YEARS AGO–DEAD BODY GEN. BEN McCULLOCH REPOSED IN IT–HE WAS INDIAN FIGHTER, TEXAS INDEPENDENCE WARRIOR AND LEADER–KILLED IN BATTLE OF PEA RIDGE.
Texas should not be recreant of her obligations to her pioneers and heroic defenders and we may add that she had not been.
The subject of Klepper’s mural recently presented in the lobby of McKinney’s substantial, Federal stone post office building, “The Tucker Hotel,” is an enduring memorial of a grateful public made possible by the cooperation of the now noted Texas artist whose brush has attracted fame and admiration throughout the Southwest. The old Tucker two-story frame hotel depicted was a landmark in most the first thirty years’ history of McKinney. It stood on the northeast corner of the public square and burn, June 28, 1875, at which time the north side of the public square burned out.
Mr. Klepper obtained his knowledge of the old hotel building that burned fifty-nine years ago from Mrs. M. H. Garnett, Mr. Wick Graves and perhaps one or two others who had seen it.
Mrs. Garnett then lived in the home of her grandmother, Mrs. A. S. Hurt, whose residence stood about where Dr. F. J. Wood’s jewelry store now stands on North Tennessee street just north of the Central State bank. As a little girl, then Maggie Bounds, she remembers the conflagration quite vividly.
The Tucker Hotel was owned and operated by Jack Tucker, who also owned a big livery stable that stood across the street, south of the hotel on the spot now occupied by the McKinney Dry Goods company.
The hotel was the scene of many civic and social activities during and after the Civil War period. Mr. Klepper’s mural perpetuates the scene on the day that Gen. Ben McCulloch’s body lay in state at the hotel as it was being conveyed from the battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, where he was killed, March 8, 1862, to his home in South Texas for burial. At the same time, a company of home organized Confederate troops were being presented their colors by a young woman from the balcony of the second story of this hotel, just as the soldiers were ready to depart for the front....
