Mount Rush Hour

Texas is no stranger to bragging rights, and the city Houston has plenty to brag about.  Houston is the largest city in Texas, the fourth largest city in the country, and recently earned the distinction of being the most diverse city in the country.   Thanks to the sprawling size of the city and relatively low cost of living, 22 of the Fortune 500 companies call Houston home.   While all that bodes well for the economy of Houston, it also produces some of the worst traffic south of the Mason-Dixon.

While the daily commute will likely continue to be a sluggish grind, artist David Adickes has created a solution to make the drive a bit statelier.   The busts of four statesmen, carved to Texas sized proportion have been positioned on I-45 to give commuters a bit of something to admire as they crawl past.  The statues are known as Mount Rush Hour.  Washington and Lincoln are easily recognizable, and any Texas schoolchild will recognize the other two statesmen as Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston.  (Austin was responsible for bringing the first white settlers to Texas and is considered the Father of Texas.  Houston was the first president of Texas.)

David Adickes has always been big Texas thinker, and his other giant contributions to the state include a mammoth statue of Sam Houston in nearby Huntsville and a statue of Austin in Angleton.    Each of the Mount Rush Hour statues is 22 feet tall, and across their collective bases is scrawled the message “A Tribute to American Statesmanship.”   Adickes tribute seems to be more than a mere traffic diversion, however, and is also a reminder of an era of a different breed of political leadership.  “We need more of them (statesmen).  I would settle for one good one,” said Adickes.