Early in my June 2026 vacation, I decided I would stop at the “peace park” art installation east of Amarillo in the Texas panhandle, which I had photographed in passing on two previous occasions.
The centerpiece of the installation is this large steel peace sign.
There is a lack of explanatory signage at the site, and while trying to look it up, I found it is variously identified as the Richard Daniel Baker Peace Park, the Stoner Peace Garden of All Faiths, the Peace Garden of All Faiths, and the Patriot Peace Garden.
Some Peace Park signs mark significant dates. On the left is the “Day the Music Died,” and on the right is the day Apollo 11 landed on the moon.
This area is noted as the home of a couple of other interesting art installations, the Cadillac Ranch, and the Bug Ranch (which is an attempt to copy the Cadillac Ranch), although what was left of the Bug Ranch after years of neglect in Conway, Texas was moved to into Amarillo and renamed the Slug Bug Ranch at The Big Texan RV Park.
Sometimes painting something is just because we have paint.
In any case, I felt I wanted to create a photo essay about it while I had the chance. It was hot and windy when I arrived.
The sky was boldly blue, and I enhanced it with a polarizer.The Peace Bench looks different every time I visit, since this place is painted and repainted in the same tradition as the Cadillac Ranch.I love the way the sun shines through the cut messages.“Peace” is the overwhelming message of the park.The messages in the peace park are laser-cut into weathering steel.This is an extract from the John Lennon lyric, “All we are saying is give peace a chance.”On all three occasions I have visited this feature, the centerpiece peace sign is painted in a different color scheme.Sometimes it is difficult to get flags to look the way they should while flapping in the breeze.The date on the left is the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The dates on the right are the dates of the siege of the Alamo.If you sit on the Peace Bench, you face the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament of the Bible.A Christian cross stands boldly against a deep blue Texas sky.Some of the Ten Commandments from the Old Testament of the Bible are visible in this image.With so many adherents clinging to their ideas while despising others, this sign makes a lot of sense to me.This is the back of the sign shown in the previous image.The variously-named Peace Park stands in a patch of lonely Texas panhandle rangeland.Lest you think that is a maple leaf, it’s not.Hand prints in concrete are painted white.I am definitely “remaerd a.”We are all dreamers.
