The company brought its booming business headquarters to Dallas in the 1920s, but it would be another decade later before the bright red logo set the city\u2019s skyline aglow.<\/p>\n
Breaking News<\/p>\n
By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n A look through The Dallas Morning News\u2019 archives gives a glimpse into how Dallasites embraced the Pegasus as a symbol for the city, even replicating it once and saving both versions from being rusted beyond repair \u2014 or blown away<\/a>.<\/p>\n A Red Pegasus is perched atop of the Magnolia Hotel at 1401 Commerce St. in downtown Dallas on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. <\/p>\n Juan Figueroa \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n \u2018An enduring monument\u2019<\/p>\n A headline in a special section of The News on Aug. 13, 1922, read \u201cMagnolia Building, City\u2019s Greatest Business Beehive, Teems With Life.\u201d<\/p>\n Below the headline is a large photo of the 402-foot-6-inch skyscraper, the 16th tallest in the U.S. Standing at 29 stories (31 if you include the basements), the Magnolia Building towered over all others in Dallas. It cost an estimated $4 million.<\/p>\n \u201cA masterpiece of architectural beauty and pyramid-like strength, the addition of the Magnolia Building to the Dallas skyline gives this city one of the finest office buildings in the world,\u201d the story reads. <\/p>\n A clipping of the Aug. 13, 1922, edition of The Dallas Morning News with stories about the Magnolia Building opening.<\/p>\n The Dallas Morning News archives<\/p>\n The Magnolia Petroleum Company\u2019s office in the city\u2019s business district on the corner of Commerce and Akard streets was constructed in about 18 months, with tenants beginning to move in before completion.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the erection of its great skyscraper office building in Dallas, the Magnolia Petroleum Company has set up an enduring monument to the ideals and accomplishments of big business, the like of which in point of magnitude few other corporations of a life of twelve years can point to,\u201d another story in the special edition read.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n The red Pegasus was installed atop the Magnolia building in 1934, ahead of an American Petroleum Institute convention in the city. <\/p>\n The horse, designed, built and erected by Texlite, was composed of two profiles made of red porcelain enameled steel weighing 6,000 pounds. Both profiles are 42 feet in length from the Pegasus\u2019 nigh front foot to the off-hind foot, and 32 feet wide from the topmost wing-tip to its lowest galloping hoof.<\/p>\n A three-horsepower motor rotated the horse about one revolution every 40 seconds; when wind speeds surpassed 30 miles an hour, a governing device caused the horse to turn its head to the wind and stop turning.<\/p>\n A photo published in Oct. 1, 1935, edition of The Dallas Morning News showing the Magnolia Petroleum Company red Pegasus logo perched atop its building on the corner of Commerce and Akard streets in downtown Dallas.<\/p>\n The Dallas Morning News archives<\/p>\n \u201cThe Magnolia Oil Company\u2019s symbol has had folks craning their necks for twenty years,\u201d a reporter wrote in a Aug. 16, 1954, story about the Texlite <\/a>electrician who was the \u201cone-horse groom\u201d caring for the Pegasus for two decades. \u201cAnd most people feel the same way about as Groom Guernsey, who says: \u2018I just don\u2019t seem to get tired of looking at the horse.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n A \u2018beacon\u2019 in the new millennium <\/p>\n Time advanced and circumstances changed, like they tend to do in a fast-moving city like Dallas.<\/p>\n Magnolia Petroleum Company was folded into Mobil Oil and moved out of downtown<\/a>, the building the Pegasus was perched upon changed hands multiple times, and the sign was eventually given by the oil company to the city of Dallas in 1976.<\/p>\n In 1999 \u2014 decades after the flying red horse was named an official Dallas landmark in 1973 \u2014 a group created the \u201cPegasus Project\u201d to repair the horse to its former glory.<\/p>\n They kicked off a half-million-dollar campaign to restore the icon and have it back to its original condition in time for a New Year\u2019s Eve celebration. The horse hadn\u2019t rotated for nearly 25 years, and its neon hadn\u2019t operated since 1997.<\/p>\n \u201cThis downtown landmark was a symbol of our city\u2019s founding and its youthful years,\u201d U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson said at a news conference, according to an April 27, 1999, article from The News. <\/p>\n \u201cIt served as a beacon to our citizens and visitors. It was that red neon sign on the distant horizon that welcomed us home.\u201d<\/p>\n The neon sign was removed from the Magnolia Building with plans of using the original panels to serve as templates for new construction.<\/p>\n Dr. Gail Thomas, founder of the Dallas Institute of the Humanities and Culture and co-chairman of the Pegasus Project, also spoke at the news conference.<\/p>\n She shared the myth of the Pegasus: A horse that flew out of Medusa after the monster\u2019s snake-covered head was cut off. When the flying horses\u2019 hooves struck the earth, a spring of fresh water appeared.<\/p>\n The natural springs bubbling up from the earth makes sense as a symbol of an exploratory oil company. At the time the Pegasus found its perch in Dallas, that symbol also corresponded with a city that prides itself for making something out of nothing, like a bustling, rich city among the prairie land.<\/p>\n Thomas said a story of triumph over impossible situations is an apt symbol for Dallas.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is not just an icon, this is a story that keeps us going,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In 1999, workers used a helicopter to lower a crane next to Dallas’ historic icon, Pegasus, during the project to replace the Flying Red Horse atop the Magnolia Hotel in Dallas. A new Pegasus, costing $600,000, took its place and was fully illuminated at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2000. <\/p>\n Huy Nguyen \/ The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n The team effort was successful, with the replica Pegasus being placed, aglow and rotating, atop its perch in time to ring in 2000. At the time, about 45,000 people crowded onto Main Street on New Year\u2019s Eve to watch the horse light back up.<\/p>\n Custom sign-maker Warren Casteel who led the project told The News he was warned the $600,000 repair would be a \u201cjob from hell\u201d but he got it done \u2014 and then some.<\/p>\n The revived Pegasus had a computerized turning mechanism so it would move easily and automatically turn into the direction of a heavy wind. A crane was also assembled atop the Magnolia to help erect the horse with the intent of leaving it there permanently for maintenance purposes, Casteel said in a Dec. 28, 1999, story.<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing that would upset me the most 10 or 15 years from now is to come back and see it not be maintained,\u201d Casteel said. \u201cThat\u2019s the key to keeping Pegasus for the city of Dallas.\u201d<\/p>\n Now a two-horse city<\/p>\n Though there are many flying red horses<\/a> spread throughout Dallas, the original and its replica remain most significant. But the two have only been simultaneously displayed in different parts of downtown for about a decade. <\/p>\n The Pegasus before its lighting ceremony at the Omni Dallas<\/p>\n Nathan Hunsinger \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n The original Pegasus \u2014 which took a scavenger hunt of sorts to find<\/a> \u2014 was kept in a storage shed until 2015, before it was renovated and placed in front of the Omni Dallas Hotel on Lamar Street.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Q3EOR2DU6FD33AJYVPKTXN6SNY.jpg\")
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The 6,000-pound flying horse<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/KW2HP2PB55GB3E23OMS5W4MDTA.png\")
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