San Marcos – San Marcos has always had a reputation as a college town, as Texas State University has called this part of Central Texas home since 1899. 35,000 students flock to this campus in search of higher education, and when they need some quiet time, the Albert B. Alkek Library is the place to go. But if you head to 7,th On the ground floor of this intellectual hub, you’ll find more than just a place to learn; you’ll come across an incredible collection that preserves the cultural heritage of Texas. “We are dedicated to what we call collecting, preserving and sharing the creative heritage of Texas and the Southwest,” said David Coleman.
David is the director of the Wittliff Collection. “When Bill started this place, he wanted to inspire young people to be creative,” said David.
The collection was founded in 1986 by Bill Wittliff, a native Texan who has worked on several films, including Red Headed Stranger, Barbarosa, The Fall and The Tempest. “(Bill) always wanted to be a creator and a storyteller,” David said. “He knew from a young age that stories and storytelling were his calling.”
Wittliff began his storytelling career by founding the Encino Press, and that led to him meeting an author associated with the Lone Star State. “Bill founded that publishing company in 1963. And then in 1968 he published a book by Larry McMurtry called In a Narrow Grave,” David said. “He and Bill got along really well. They were Texas boys. They had read the same books growing up. So when it finally came time to choose someone to adapt the novel, Bill was the obvious choice.”
Bill’s work in the world of film eventually formed the basis for the collection’s largest exhibit. “One of our most remarkable collections, Lonesome Dove, we owe all of it to Bill Witliff, who was co-executive producer and adapted Larry McMurtry’s novel into the screenplay,” David said. “And he hired a lot of ‘Texas Guys,’ as he always said, to stay true to the story. And he always said when we were shooting, ‘If we stay true to Lonesome Dove, Lonesome Dove will stay true to us.’ I can’t tell you how many people come here and they either have a dog named Gus or a kid named Gus or something. And people are buried with copies of Lonesome Dove in their coffins. And it’s a story that was amazing for its time and won the Pulitzer Prize, and then the movie really touches the hearts of so many people.”
It seems like Bill worked on the Lonesome Dove series with the foresight that people would want to preserve parts of the show for future generations. “The reason we have these incredible costumes, props, costumes and more from Lonesome Dove is because Bill ran a collection of sorts while we were filming and during production of the miniseries,” David said. “He was on set every day, and after they wrapped a production location, he would beg, borrow and steal from those production locations, as I always like to say, to then add to this archive. Sometimes it’s that culture that binds us more, especially during these times. It’s that culture. There are cultural moments like Lonesome Dove that bring us all together and remind us how important it is to preserve and appreciate Texas history.”
Most of the pieces in the Lonesome Dove collection have stories behind them that will appeal to fans of the show. “It’s a little bit creepy,” David said. “Kind of funny and kind of scary at the same time. If it’s been a while since you or your audience has seen or read Lonesome Dove, spoiler alert: Gus dies in the middle of the movie. And it’s up to Call, Woodrow Call, to bring him all the way back from Montana to Texas. And this is one of the puppets that is used and it kind of falls apart when Call brings him back to Texas. The props department played a little joke on the people who worked with it and put a little glass eye in the costume. Not that that ever showed up on screen. But when you look at it, it kind of scares some of our visitors.”
Having a collection of memories of a medium so important to Texans often brings up a lot of emotions in visitors. “It’s hard not to love Lonesome Dove and the Lonesome Dove archive,” David said. “It’s very magical, and to see the expressions on people’s faces when they come and look at this exhibit is really amazing. I’ve seen so many grown men cry over Gus’s body that we have here. And that’s pretty remarkable.”
The Wittliff Collection isn’t all about Lonesome Dove, though, as it has all kinds of Texas stories. “Here we have the incredible King of the Hill,” David said. “We have the King of the Hill production archive, donated to us by Jim Dauterive, who was executive producer, writer and showrunner on the show after Fox canceled it.”‘
When it comes to cartoons, it doesn’t get much more Texan than King of the Hill. “Gosh, we love King of the Hill,” David said. “The kids here at Texas State love King of the Hill. What we like best about it is that we have this bible, as it was called, front and center. It was a guide for the writers around Arlen, Texas, which of course doesn’t exist, but it certainly exists in the minds of many Texans. It was about how the characters would act, what the characters would say, how you would draw the characters, what they would look like. Things you should do and things you should never do or not do.”
While film and media are heavily represented here, there is also an incredible photography collection and you can find things from many Texas singer-songwriters like Gary P. Nunn’s legendary lyrics to London Homesick Blues, Jerry Jeff Walker’s hat and even Guy Clark’s ashes. “For any true Texas music fan, this is a must-see,” David said. “These are the final remains of Guy Clark, the Texas singer-songwriter. A work by another singer-songwriter, Terry Allen, who donated it to us. He left his ashes to Terry and wanted Terry to somehow make a sculpture out of it. If you look really closely at the rock that the crow is standing on and even on some of the crow’s feathers, you’ll see these flecks of gold, kind of gold dust. And that’s Guy’s ashes. He opened the crow’s chest and put the rest of Guy’s ashes inside the bird. For Guy Clark fans, this is a pilgrimage site that everyone should visit.”
The Wittliff Collections are truly a unique collection of cultural artifacts, not only because Bill had access to so many creative people, but also because of the things he preserved and displayed in the museum. “Bill was really keen to collect things that made artists seem human and in some ways like you and me,” David said. “So he wanted to capture that source of inspiration, that spark of creativity, but at the same time show the human side. For example, we have Stevie Ray Vaughan’s sobriety journal. We think it’s really important to show the human side of these creative people and their way of life.”
Seeing so much of what makes Texas Texas is a real treat for any fan of the Lone Star State, because learning more about who we are is always a good recommendation on the Texas bucket list. “J. Frank Dobie, an old folklorist who taught at UT Austin for many, many years, said that people would live more fulfilling lives if they basically knew a little bit more about the place they came from,” David said. “So our hope is that anyone who learns a little bit more about Texas will live a more fulfilling life.”
