Zilker Nature Sites: Philosopher’s Rock

The statue is of Roy Bedichek, J. Frank Dobie and Walter Prescott Webb.

“He left life in the way he had hoped to, without ever having been out of it."

–J. Frank Dobie about Roy Bedichek

“My presence here is one of the most improbable accidents in the history of the profession. I am here in defiance of geography, regionalism, and history. My background is southern, both my parents being from Mississippi; my home is west of the Big River, and my field of study has been the plebian field of Western America. All my degrees are from a state university, the one in which I teach. I have never taught anywhere else except temporarily. I am one of the few persons who did not have to leave home to get a job. I am an example of institutional inbreeding which frightens all universities save the two that practice it most, Harvard and Oxford.”

–Walter Prescott Webb addressing the American Historical Association as President of the Association on December 29, 1958