This Is Bear County — mural in Waco, Texas

A stop on the Waco's Walls trail

7This Is Bear County

“This Is Bear County! Waco, TX.” by Tony Bryant, 2019 · grayscale history mural on painted cinder block on the side of Ambold’s Key, Lock & Alarm, 1125 Franklin Ave · catalogued by Creative Waco as “Ambold’s Mural”MURAL

Waco's twentieth century, drawn in pencil-grey across a whole city block.

Turn the corner and the color drains out of the world. This wall is one enormous charcoal drawing of Waco remembering itself: the ALICO tower, Ambold's locksmith shop with its 1882 founding date, Baylor's old Carroll Field, a firefighter walking into smoke — and, carried across the top like a newspaper somebody kept, the headline from May 1953. 67 TO 150 KILLED IN TORNADO. The final count was 114. It is still the deadliest tornado in Texas history, and it came straight down Austin Avenue, a few steps from where you're standing.

Waco painted it anyway. Right beside the bear, right beside the ball games and the bicycles and the ordinary Tuesday afternoons. That's the whole point of the wall: a city puts its worst day on the same page as its best ones, because both of them are how it got here.

📍 Walk me there See it on the trail map

More views

This Is Bear County — The bear and the headline — The bear and the headline

This Is Bear County — The firefighter walking into smoke — The firefighter walking into smoke

This Is Bear County — The far stretch — Dr Pepper, Ambold's, Carroll Field — The far stretch — Dr Pepper, Ambold's, Carroll Field