Hoof and Mouth Disease

This is an original Bud Breen oil painting titled "AFTOSA US River Patrol." It is 36 x 24.

Aftosa is the Latin American word for Hoof and Mouth Disease. Outbreaks of Aftosa began occuring in the US in 1870: About Aftosa

In 1914 Aftosa hit Texas. Perhaps it was this rider's job to look for and report sick animals and prevent sick animals or, possibly, infected animals from crossing into the US from Mexico. To this day we have river riders in Texas whose job it is to keep Mexican and US ranch and farm animals from crossing the border.

Cherokee Artist -- Bud Breen

I have been wanting to show you this Bud Breen painting since I created this blog. Isn't it striking? And so very unlike anything we've ever seen of Bud's work. This image came from The Cherokee Nation website. There are several images of his paintings there. I saw the above image several years ago but could never find it online again. I just happened to stumble across it tonight. Its caption reads: Three generations of Cherokees. On the left is Mary Layton, the matriarch of the Cherokee Nation of Mexico. In the center is her grandmother, Mary Price, who died in 1892. On the right is her grandson, Charles Rogers. Bud’s painting brings this family together on canvas in the same way that it exists in our hearts.

Business at the Bank -- Bud Breen

This Bud Breen original is listed in our Etsy store.

In Business at the Bank, on the right side, you can see a second building. The second building is Jewel's (Breen Gallery owner) current office and housed The Brackett News for 17 years with her as publisher. In the above photograph I tried to capture the scene that Bud painted as it stands today. Do you see that cannon on the left in the photograph? That marks where Brackettville's bank actually stood in the 1800's. The structure behind the cannon is The Bank & Trust and was built after the original bank was torn down. Our building was once a two story structure as you can see below. It was Brackettville's post office.

Above: a view from just past the bank. The first building on the left is our office, the original post office in Brackettville. Aplogies for the quality of the above two images, I had to shoot them through glass as I couldn't remove them from their frame.

Above: A photograph taken today from the same angle as the 1800's photograph above. You can see that our building is no longer two stories. The building past it still stands and the top floor serves as the local Masonic Lodge. Some of the structures on the right side of the street are still standing as well... more or less.