Larry Francell – J.B.D. Stillman, Civilian Post Surgeon at Fort Lancaster, Texas

Description

Larry Francell is the former Director of the Museum of the Big Bend at Sul Ross State University.  He has degrees from Austin College (B.A- History) and the University of Texas at Austin (M.A.-History} and began a 40-year career in museums at Fort Davis National Historic Site.

He was the Director of the Wichita Falls Museum and Art Center, Project Manager for the construction of the new Dallas Museum of Art, as well as Director of Operations. For fifteen years he was a partner in FAE, Worldwide, a museum and arts services company.

He the author of Fort Lancaster: Texas Frontier Sentinel published by the Texas State Historical Association; Fort Davis, an Arcadia Images of America Publication; and the Introduction to Marfa Flights: Aerial Views of Big Bend Country by Paul Chaplo and published by Texas A&M Press. He has authored numerous articles and spoken numerous times on topics related to museums and history of his region.

Dr. J.B.D. Stillman, a New York Physician and an adventurer by nature, in 1855 decided to visit Texas where he would study the resources and natural history in a place he thought “inhabited by an Elysium of rogues.”

Signing a deal with the New York Crayon, a short-lived but, for a time, a leading journal for landscape art, he agreed to report on his adventures. Arriving at Fort Lancaster, one of the most isolated Army posts in Texas, responsible for protecting the San Antonio – El Paso Road across west Texas, Stillman, a civilian, agreed to sign on as the post surgeon.

He served for only two months, leaving an indelible record of life at one of the loneliest places on the Texas frontier. But this was just one of his many adventures.