The George H. W. Bush Monument in Houston, Texas, was unveiled in December 2004 and features an eight-foot-tall bronze statue of George H. W. Bush. Chas Fagan designed the monument, located in Houston’s Sesquicentennial Park and part of a larger project that included a plaza and a wall with four reliefs sculpted by Willy Wang that highlight events of Bush’s career. David B. Jones and local immigration lawyer Charles Foster led the private funding for the project, which cost $1.7 million.
The George W. Bush Presidential Center opened on April 25, 2013. The centerpiece is a 9/11 exhibit, but it is but one section of the 14,000-square-foot museum that opened to the public last month. In addition, the museum features a full scale replica of the Oval Office, information about life in The White House, President Bush’s two dogs, a collection of autographed baseballs and an exhibit — complete with hanging chads — about the 2000 election in which Bush defeated then Vice President Al Gore.
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The Grapevine Calaboose, which derived its name from “calabozo,” the Spanish word for dungeon, was built as the town’s first jail in 1914. The Grapevine City Council authorized its construction in 1909. It was originally located elsewhere in town (on Barton Street) and moved to Heritage Park in 1976, and to its current location in 1994. The jail apparently housed associates of the Barrow Gang. It remained in use until the early 1950s.
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The Grapevine Vintage Railroad takes tourists from the small town of Grapevine, a town that cherishes its rugged western appearance and attracts tourists with wine tasting rooms and other merchants along its main street, to the heart of the Old West, Fort Worth. At the stockyards, visitors can climb atop a longhorn for a photo op, watch the twice-daily cattle drives or catch a glimpse of the unabated wild west or visit one of the museums, including the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, the Texas Rodeo Cowboy Hall of Fame and the Stockyards Museum. And, of course, the Grapevine Vintage Railroad.
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While many know the Harry Ransom Center as an internationally renowned humanities research center, it hosts many exhibits of interest to the general traveling public. The center, located at The University of Texas at Austin, is home to 100,000 works of art, 5 million photographs, more than 42 million manuscripts and nearly 1 million books. The collection’s highlights include one of only 20 complete copies of the Gutenberg Bible in the world.
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The 445-acre Hermann Park is one of the most visited public areas in all of Houston. The park sits in the middle of Texas Medical Center, Rice University and the Museum District. The park is named for George H. Hermann, who gave the land to the city in 1914.
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The Houston Police Department museum is located in the lobby of HPD headquarters at 1200 Travis. The museum features displays and a memorial wall honoring the officers who gave their lives in the line of duty. Displays include artifacts from the Honor Guard, SWAT, Mounted Patrol, badges, uniforms and other equipment police used over the years.
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The Interurban Railway Museum in Plano, Texas, was completed in 1908 by the Texas Electric Railway as its Plano station. The railway used the building until 1948, when it ceased operations, and it stood vacant until 1990, when the city of Plano renovated the building for use as the Interurban Railway Museum. The museum is home to Texas Electric Railway No. 360, a restored car. The Plano Conservancy for Historic Preservation has operated the museum since 2001.
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The night before he was assassinated, President John F. Kennedy stayed at the Hotel Texas in downtown Fort Worth. The next morning, he gave an impromptu speech outside the hotel, just hours before he was killed. “There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth,” the president told a crowd gathered outside the hotel. In 2012, the JFK Tribute was unveiled in General Worth Square downtown, near the site of the former Hotel Texas, today a Hilton.
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According to VisitDallas.com, “Phillip Johnson, a Kennedy family friend, constructed this stark and simple memorial to the late president.” The memorial is located in the Dallas County Historical Plaza and near Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was killed on Nov. 22, 1963.
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