quote:

---

BELTON — On Monday Bell County Precinct 4 Commissioner John Fisher took an unusual item to the Bell County Courthouse: a sandstone bas-relief sculpture depicting what appears to be a triple hanging. Three human figures are dangling by their necks from rope around a tree branch.
Despite the unusual nature of the sculpture, very little is known about it. What is known is that the sculpture was found in fall 2010 on a ranch in Milam County.

---

quote:

---

BELTON — Bell County Precinct 4 Commissioner John Fisher took an unusual item to the Bell County Courthouse on Monday: a sandstone sculpture depicting what appeared to be a triple hanging. Three human figures are shown dangling by their necks from rope around a tree branch.
Despite the unusual nature of the sculpture, very little is known about it. What is known is that the sculpture was found in fall 2010 on a ranch in Milam County.
“Some hunters found this out by Rockdale and weren’t sure what it was,” Fisher said. “We don’t know if the hanging happened in Milam County or was something that the sculptor saw somewhere else.”
The sculpture has been in the possession of Mike Beck, the former owner of the ranch, since it was discovered.
He added that it sat in his workshop for years until curiosity finally got the better of him.
“The story behind the stone could be kind of interesting and kind of spooky,” Beck said. “I don’t really know much about it; we found the stone and sold the ranch the next summer.”
The stone was discovered near an abandoned log cabin and barn in what Beck described as a “rock garden.”
When Beck purchased the land in 2005, he was told the cabin and the barn dated back to “the early 1900s,” but he thinks it might be older.
“I’m sure the house was redone two or three times,” Beck said. “There was a lot of history in that house.”
One of the curious aspects about the sculpture is that it was discovered near a home that still had items inside of it, Beck said.
“Whoever lived there didn’t take anything with them when they left,” he added. “There were dishes and clothes and just everything still there.”
The time period, the subject of the sculpture and the possible quick departure led some to assume the Ku Klux Klan was involved.
“I don’t think we had a real active Klan presence up here,” said Lucille Estelle, a local Milam County historian. “I know a little about the history of the area and couldn’t find any reference to a triple hanging in Milam County.”
Estelle, who has studied the sculpture, thinks the painstaking attention to detail is very telling.
“It could represent a triple hanging elsewhere or something someone wanted to happen to people they didn’t like,” Estelle said. “There’s just so much about it we don’t know … we don’t even know how old it is.”

---

quote:

---

What the heck is that thing between the two trees? Maybe that'd be a clue.

---