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Pg. 5 - Discover Tyler County 2018

Clyde Gray - Tyler County Artist

Annabeth Willis didn’t Heritage Village Museum Tyler County for his work hundreds of people and
take long the first time is a very popular desti- with paintings on tile, he dozens of VIP’s), so he
she walked into Clyde nation located in Wood- worked in many mediums started putting some old
Gray’s house to decide ville. It has an interest- as an artist. He was an things around his property
that it was a treasure ing history, and exists illustrator and cartoonist, to attract attention to his
Heritage Village Museum today because of Clyde and started painting in studio, and named the
needed to acquire. Gray’s hard work back in oil and watercolor after place “Heritage Gardens,”
the 1950s, and the Tyler moving with his wife to although the only garden
“When the house became County Heritage Society’s Woodville in the 1950’s. was a little garden his
available and I saw it vision when they bought wife ‘Bill’ planted behind
for the first time,” Willis what was then Heritage Gray had another tal- their house. From this
explained, “I saw that Garden Village from Gray ent as a promoter and beginning, a historical
mural (in the kitchen) back in 1987. showman (he famously museum grew.
and thought to myself, engineered an event back
‘Oh, my God, we’ve got to Gray got his start far away in the 1970’s to have a One artifact led to anoth-
have this house!’. There from Tyler County, after helicopter fly an outhouse er, and in 1964 the 19th
definitely would not be a moving to Chicago from from Heritage Gardens to Century Tolar Cabin Kitch-
Heritage Village if it were Arkansas to study art. a museum in Nederland, en was donated to the
not for Clyde Gray.” While he made a name in an event that brought out Village. One donation, the

Tile Panel From Gray House Museum Kitchen Mural