Jeff McKissack is a curious case. A life-long bachelor, he spent his working life in a series of menial jobs — mailman, delivery driver. He would become an icon, however, for his peculiar passion for oranges.
McKissack spent 27 years building — by hand — a tribute to the orange and its healthy properties called the Orange Show Monument — the subject of this month’s Uniquely Houston. He used common building materials and found objects to construct a strange, isolated playground of sorts that counts among its features 80 tractors seats, 80 wheels, a wishing well and painted iron figures.
Passion and commitment
For the pragmatic, McKissack’s endeavor seems absurd. That sentiment gets multiplied when you consider that he envisioned his monument would be a bigger draw than the Houston Astrodome. But his passion and commitment, his courage, dedication and hard work, for me at least, outshine any idea of foolish eccentricity.
When I spoke with Lynette Wallace, executive director of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Art, which serves as a curator for the property, she talked about how the attraction was discovered. Marilyn Oshman, the daughter of a sporting goods store owner, would take people out to see the monument. Wallace said her guests would be fascinated that one man was able to build the 3,000-square-foot attraction. Oshman would become the savior of the place, when, after McKissack died, she formed a foundation to preserve the monument and simultaneously validate McKissack’s vision.
Wallace says that some believe McKissack died of a broken heart. He toiled to build what in his dreams would be an attraction of the ages, but saw few people come. Though McKissack didn’t get to experience it, the monument now draws some 9,000 visitors each year who travel from across the globe to see his vision executed in junk.
Courage
In an interview cut into a series of videos on YouTube, McKissack said that when he first started building the monument, his neighbors complained that they didn’t want it around. He said, “If I were to quit building this because a few of my neighbors didn’t want it, that would show that I didn’t have no courage.”
Courage may be the motor that drives the entrepreneurs we feature in this year’s EY Entrepreneur of the Year® Gulf Coast Area Awards. Each story inevitably recounts a person’s struggle for success. They quit their high-paying jobs, leaving the security of a sure thing to venture into the unknown, fueled by the idea of building something that hasn’t been seen before. Of course, we’re not featuring the failures, of which there are many. But knowing the peril of failure exists makes these success stories worthy of celebration.
McKissack was driven by his passions, his need to express himself. His unique story is attached to the universal notion of building something out of nothing and, like the entrepreneurs in these pages, finding success in the courage to realize a dream.
Adam Burroughs is interested in the people and businesses making a difference in Houston.
