Bob Jones Part Of “Black Cowboys” Exhibit In San Antonio

The Witte Museum exhibit runs from June 14, 2024 through February 9, 2025

Southlake’s very own Bob Jones is part of an exhibition at San Antonio’s Witte Museum called “Black Cowboys: An American Story”. The exhibition introduces visitors to Black cowboys who demonstrated “courage in the face of discrimination, skill to overcome great odds, and success through generations of ranching and becoming leaders in their field.”

Bob Jones became an integral part of Southlake’s history after the Civil War, when he and his wife, Almeady Jones, established a prosperous ranch along the Tarrant-Denton county line in what is now Southlake. While the ranch is long gone, his legacy lives on with the Bob Jones Nature Center and Preserve. In addition, CISD’s Walnut Grove Elementary is named after the school that Jones founded in 1920 to serve black and mixed-race children.

“After learning about Bob and Almeady Jones—their leadership in the community, the growth of their ranch and the important role they played in educating Black students—we knew that the history needed to be brought to a wider audience,” said Ronald W. Davis II, Curator of American History at the Witte Museum. “The Witte created ‘Black Cowboys: An American Story’ to honor the lives and legacies of Black cowboys and cowgirls across Texas; the Jones family, rightly, is part of that story.”

Black Cowboys originally opened at the Witte in 2021. Since then, it has traveled to the African American Museum of Dallas, the Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. It will soon travel to the Autry Museum of the American West in California and the Kalamazoo Valley Museum in Michigan.

*Fun fact - the “Black Coyboys” exhibit was the inspiration behind Ft. Worth-raised Leon Bridges’ 2024 Met Gala 'fit, which landed him atop the night’s best-dressed lists.