A Johnson County arts group wants to display the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that was taken down earlier this month in Dallas.
"It's really a beautiful statue," said Alden Nellis, president of the non-profit Cleburne Friends of the Cultural Arts, which runs the JN Long Cultural Arts Complex in Cleburne.
"I cannot stand to see good art like that destroyed or even set in a warehouse to deteriorate," said Nellis, who has already contacted the city of Dallas about getting the statue.
The cultural arts complex, located in an old neighborhood school, displays the works of local artists, including a mural featuring presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln.
After four years in the building, the group is now looking for big sculptures to display outside, beginning with the statue of Lee.
"It's available," Nellis said. "It's really a beautiful statue."
The statue of another Confederate general, Patrick Cleburne, stands just a few blocks away, closer to the center of the town that was named after him.
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But city fathers would rather not see the Lee statue come to town.
"We're not going to tell private owners what they can and can't do," said Cleburne Mayor Scott Cain.
"General Pat Cleburne is Cleburne's namesake, and there's a connection with Pat Cleburne," Cain said. "But I'm really not interested in bringing controversy to the city of Cleburne."
The Dallas City Council will decide in November what to do with the Lee statue, which was put away in storage after it was removed from the city park that bore his name.
The Mayor's Task Force on Confederate Monuments recommends the statue be gifted or loaned to a local museum or similar institution.
