Bonham -- James Butler Bonham hasn't looked this good since the spirited 28-year-old South Carolina native crossed Red River in November 1835 on the way to meet his fate at the Alamo.
The award-winning Fannin County Historical Commission takes on a variety of projects each year, but no project has a higher visibility than the local historical commission's decision to raise the necessary funds needed to restore Allie Tennant's historical statue of Bonham's namesake.
In March of 2012 the Fannin County Historical Commission approved as a project the cleaning and restoration of the James Butler Bonham statue on the courthouse lawn. The county commissioners approved the project. Letters were sent out to all media, businesses, service clubs, organizations, citizens of Fannin County, and former citizens of the county.
American Restoration in Sherman Texas was chosen to do the work. The cost was $19,717.47. From the letters sent out $12,010 was collected. A grant was received from The Daughters of the Republic of Texas for $8000. A total of $20,010 was raised.
The origin of the statue dates back 78 years. To commemorate the 1936 Texas Centennial, it was decided to erect statues to nineteen Texas heroes. Allie Tennent was chosen to sculpt the statue of James Butler Bonham, and she personally supervised the placement in Bonham on December 10, 1938.
"Remember the Alamo and Remember Goliad!" exclaimed Fannin County Judge J. E. Spies as he accepted the statue on behalf of Fannin County.
Now, 75 years later, those same words may once again echo through the Bonham Square at a rededication ceremony in the near future now that the statue has been properly restored to its original luster.
"It was a tribute to the Alamo," Tom Thornton, chairman of the Fannin County Historical Commission, says of the image of James Butler Bonham, "and also a tribute to Fannin County because we were chosen to receive the statue."
Tennant was one of the best-known sculptors in the Southwest at the time. According to The Handbook of Texas Online, Tennant's best-known work is the nine-foot-high gilded-bronze Tejas Warrior that has graced the entrance doorway of the Texas Centennial Hall of State building in Dallas for 75 years.
In 1938, the same year Tennant finished the James Butler Bonham statue, she also sculpted the Antonio Navarro Memorial in Corsicana, Texas. Tennant was commissioned by Work Projects Administration to carve the relief Cattle, Oil, and Wheat for the post office in Electra, Texas which was completed in 1940.
Tennant exhibited work at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1935), the Art Institute of Chicago (1935), the Kansas City Art Institute (1935), the Architectural League of New York (1938), the World's Fair in New York (1939), the Whitney Museum of American Art (1940), the National Sculpture Society (1940), and the Carnegie Institute (1941).
