Governor Jack Callaway Walton
by Leonard D. McMurry
Jack Callaway Walton was born March 6, 1881, on a farm near Indianapolis, Indiana. After a ten-year stay in Lincoln, Nebraska, he joined the Army in 1897. Although he saw no foreign service during the Spanish-American War, he did live in Mexico before coming to Oklahoma City in 1903, as a sales engineer. He was Commissioner of Public Works in 1917; Mayor of Oklahoma City, 1919-1923; elected Governor in 1922; and impeached within the year, serving from January 8, to November 19, 1923; served in the State Corporation Commission from 1932 until 1939, when he retired to enter private law practice. He died November 25, 1949, and is buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Oklahoma City.
The Artist
Known
as Oklahoma’s own “Michelangelo,” Leonard McMurry was born
to a family of prominent cotton farmers in the Texas panhandle. McMurry moved
to Oklahoma in 1955 and then lived in Stilwell and Oklahoma City. Under the teachings
of sculptors Carl Mose and Ivan Mestrovic, McMurry perfected his craft. His
magnificent sculptures of Oklahoma icons can be seen across the state including
the ‘89er statue on Couch Drive in Oklahoma City and the Praying Hands that grace the
lawns of Oral Roberts University.
In accordance with Oklahoma’s Diamond Jubilee celebration in 1982, McMurry
was commissioned to sculpt busts of 21 past Oklahoma Governors. The
Hall of Governors exudes Oklahoman’s pride in her past legislative guardians.
Regarding his works, McMurry states, “Each piece must have a soul, a
living quality that’s far more important than just physical representation.
A piece has to have guts: the strength, power, and dignity, that makes it a
monument.” McMurry has accomplished that very feat within the grandiose
Hall of Governors in which visitors may come face to face with naturalistic
representation of Oklahoma leaders.
Governor Jack Callaway Walton by Leonard D. McMurry is located
in the Hall of Governors on the second floor of the Oklahoma State Capitol
and can be viewed daily from 8:30-5:30.