Huge Cross in Groom, Texas

[Roy]

A few to share from our visit to Groom.

[prncfarquad]

Those are really well done Roy. I have never seen or heard of Groom before. thanks for sharing!

[MHampton]

#!6 really jumped out at me. Very dramatic! Well done.

[zerovision]

Super nice pictures. Thanks for posting.

[Roy]

Originally Posted by prncfarquad

Those are really well done Roy. I have never seen or heard of Groom before. thanks for sharing!

Thanks Patrick. Groom is about 30 miles east of Amarillo on I-40 if I recall right. The tall cross is so large you can see it 20 miles away. Worth a stop if you're up that way.

Originally Posted by MHampton

#!6 really jumped out at me. Very dramatic! Well done.

Thanks Michael. Clearly some post work on that one... more than normal. I think I surprised myself with how that turned out. Just trying different things. Good or bad, it's how we learn.

Originally Posted by zerovision

Super nice pictures. Thanks for posting.

Thank you for posting comment Kyle. Much appreciated.

[davidlc]

Roy I like your shots been by a few times but never have stopped.

[prncfarquad]

There is a cross that size in Ballinger that I have seen I will have to make a visit to this one someday

[jcarroll]

Awesome job Roy! I have been there and didn't have my camera with me. You represented it well. The life-sized depiction of Christ's sacrifice really hits home. The cross in Ballinger doesn't have any life-sized sculptures like the one in Groom, but is equally impressive as an architectural feat. I recommend both- very, very highly.

[SpeedRacerSlots]

Been to the Ballinger one... I have friends that now live here in Houston that lived there for several years. I visited it after I installed a new sound system in their church.

SpeedRacerSlots added 3 Minutes and 35 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Roy: Beautiful photos! Nice Post work.

[Roy]

Thank you David, Patrick, Joe and Greg for those comments. I did not know of the one in Ballinger. I took more but I thought this was more than enough to show the place to the forum. There is more there to see.

[AustinEXS]

Awesome pictures Roy. I've never seen anything about this place before. Thanks for sharing.

[ipo]

lovely

[big-buck]

super cool

[Roy]

I don't see the attached images anymore. I guess they were still there on 10-9 but I didn't pull them. Thanks again for your comments. I guess someone got to see these.

[bonnie]

In the late nineties I were trucking back and forth across Canada and the states. I knew nothing of the beautiful cross in Groom Texas until we came upon it.
I stopped and began my tour in the small shack which served as an info centre and was greeted by a lovely lady with a wonderful Texas accent and an elderly man who was sitting in a chair whittling.
The whole while the lady was giving me the story, I couldn't help but be mesmorized by the "whittling man".
She explained that there was a developer who came to Groom and wanted to turn it into a "Las Vegas type" town. The residents wanted none of it but found no legal way to stop them. I cannot recall how this idea came to a very wealthy man in Groom, but he decided to build this magnificent cross which would overshadow anything in a casino town. At that time, I was told that he preferred to remain anonymous.
The end result was that the developer changed his mind and did not build anything in Groom.
I was also told that the incredibly life-like stations of the cross were donated by an extrememly gifted bronze sculpturer who also asked to remain anonymous.
When I had explored all that was completed at that time, I returned to the shack to put a donation in the box.
As I was thanking them for everything and saying good-bye, the man motioned me over to him. He held out the piece he had been whittling and gave it to me. I was speechless. It was a beautifully designed cross. I felt the moment to be almost sacred.
The cross hangs in my car to this day and is with me wherever I travel.

Several years later, I returned to the cross for a visit. The same lady was there, but no gentleman. I asked her if that man had been the one who had built the cross and she said "yes". She also told me that there was talk of the cross being attacked at midnight on the millenium. She said that several hundred truckers surrounded the cross with their truck and stayed all night to protect it.