Brad Ford Smith in his studio. Photo and drawings courtesy of Brad Ford Smith.
Do you know where to find a ghost in Dallas? We’ve all heard the most popular tales like the Lady of White Rock Lake and the Jilted Bride of the Adolphus Hotel. However, artist and art conservator, Brad Ford Smith, has taken us a step further on the ghost hunting path. His new book Where to Find a Ghost, Murder, Mayhem, And Plain Air Drawing With Brad Ford Smith launches at the RO2 Art Gallery on October 25, with 38 drawings of places you can find a ghost. What a way to kick off Halloween!
Andrew McCrew’s final resting place at Lincoln Memorial Park 8100 Fireside Dr.
Ford has been drawing historic places around Dallas for about six years. “When I say historic it’s not necessarily where great things happen,” Ford said. “It’s more like Elvis Presley played at this location and it’s now an empty field.”
When the pandemic hit and everyone was stuck at home, Ford got out and walked every day and began drawing what he saw on his walks. He’d participated in a Facebook group called INKTOBER. Every year at the beginning of the month they do a drawing each day that has to do with Halloween. Ford decided to give the concept a twist and focused on posting a daily drawing of a Dallas location where something had happened that could generate a ghost.
“So sudden death at an unexpected site,” Ford said. In other words, just because it has not been reported does not mean a ghost is not hanging around.
“If you believe in ghosts, it’s the scenario that would set up a ghost,” Ford said.
The Unsolved Murder of Florence Brown – On July 28, 1912 Florence, a 34 year old stenographer at Robinson & Styron Real Estate was catching up on paperwork. When her co-worker left and returned 40 minutes later Florence was found laying dead in a pool of blood. Her neck cut to the bone. Her arms and hands slashed multiple times. Her right arm had bite marks. Despite making national headlines no suspects or motives were found for her killing. 110 N. Field St. Dallas, TX.
Of course, Ford does a significant amount of research, reading books on Dallas history and digging into the Dallas Library archives.
“I have gotten really curious about the history that is all around us that we don’t know about,” Ford said.
There are events that have faded from public memory so the events have become ghosts as well.
The project operates as both memorial and investigation, asking what it means to witness places that bear no visible trace of their past, and whether attention itself might constitute a form of remembrance.
RO2 Gallery
Mr. Jackson Takes A Fall – On a hot summer night in 1915, Mr. Oliver Jackson fell from the roof of his boarding house and broke his neck. When police interviewed Mrs. Jackson, she claimed she pushed him over the edge in self-defense. 4501 Columbia Ave. Dallas TX.
Mildred knew her husband Herbert and rival Benny Binion were not getting along. What she didn’t know when she climbed into the family car to do the shopping was the caliber the argument had taken. When Mildred turned the ignition key, it set off a cache of nitroglycerin under the hood that blew the car and Mildred into pieces.
One of the odder stories Ford relayed in his Where to Find a Ghost series was about Anderson McCrew, who was born in 1867. He was a one-legged vagabond who fell off of a freight train in 1913, lost his other leg and died. A local funeral parlor received his body and embalmed him with experimental concentrated preservations solutions over several days to ensure he’d last until claimed by a family member. That never happened so the funeral home hung onto poor old — but well-preserved Anderson.
Apparently a traveling circus heard about him, bought him, and he went on display in a brown tuexdo and as “The Petrified Man —The Eighth Wonder of the World” for at least 40 years. When the circus folded, apparently a Houston collector of circus memorabilia bought him. McCrew ended up in a warehouse for years. When the collector died, his wife and his sister-in-law, Elgie Pace, who was a nurse, came to help clear things out. Pace was determined to give McCrew a Christian burial. However without the funds to do so the mummified body sat in her basement for another five years. When word got out about the petrified man in her basement, Frank Lott, the proprietor of Lott’s Mortuary in Dallas, stepped in and offered to bury him free of charge in Dallas’ Lincoln Memorial Cemetery.
Image courtesy Dallas History Guild
The story gets better. Don McLean, who wrote “American Pie” heard about McCrew’s story and wrote a song about it. He changed McCrews first name from Anderson to Andrew to better rhyme with his last name, according to reports. “The Legend of Andrew McCrew” appeard on his 1974 album “Homeless Brother.” It proved so popular on Chicago’s radio station WGN, that host Roy Leonard invited Pace to appear on his show with McLean.
One of several stories about how his headstone was funded claims that Bob Williams of the Jenson Corp. paid for it, while another says it was crowdfunded through the local radio station. Regardless, in December 1974, Anderson McCrew’s headstone was laid with lyrics from McClean’s song about him inscribed upon it.
Well, what a way to live a life,
And what a way to die.
Left to live a living death
With no one left to cry
A petrified amazement.
A wonder beyond worth.
A man who found more life in death,
Then life gave him at birth.
You can hear more of Ford’s ghostly tales and see his drawings on October 25 at the launch of “Where to Find a Ghost, Murder, Mayhem, And Plain Air Drawing.” The event will also feature Ford’s ”House of Giller” and “Nine Days with LiHua”.
Tim Cloward, author of The City That Killed the President; Mark and Cari Wineburg, of I See Dallas Tour Company’s Dallas Ghost Tours; and Stephanie Khattak publisher of K.Co. Press will also be on hand to talk about the history and culture of Dallas and small press publishing.
If You Go
Saturday, October 25
From 2-4 p.m.
2606 Bataan St., Dallas 75212