Jump to content

Houston Columnist Sig Byrd

FilioScotia

By FilioScotia
in Historic Houston

Recommended Posts

FilioScotia

FilioScotia

Posted
Posted

I stumbled across an old article in the Houston Press archives, about Sigman "Sig" Byrd. He was one of the best of those old school newspaper reporters with the low flat-brim hat, cheap suit and worn out shoes, who smelled of cheap cigars and straight whiskey back in the days of yore.

Sig Byrd knew Houston as few people knew it and he wrote some of the finest prose ever written to describe it. David Theis's article -- written in 1994 -- will have some of the old gray heads around here flashing back to our misspent youth.

Here's a link. http://www.houstonpress.com/1994-11-10/news/the-lost-houston-of-sig-byrd/1

Link to comment
Share on other sites
marmer

marmer

Posted
Posted

I found a copy of the book "Sig Byrd's Houston" in a used book store shortly after that came out. Actually, now that I think about it, it might have been before that came out. Maybe Douglas Milburn or someone mentioned it. It was great, but I bought it as a birthday gift for a friend (who really appreciated it) so I don't have it anymore.

Doesn't JR Gonzales occasionally post a Sig Byrd story on his Bayou City History blog?

Link to comment
Share on other sites
FilioScotia

FilioScotia

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I'm fascinated at learning that the name "Sigman Byrd" lives on, in the form of a teacher and poet at the University of Colorado. He just has to be related to Houston's Sig Byrd. The Houston Press article mentions Sig's son Sigman Byrd Junior, who was a Houston banker when the article was written in 1994. This guy in Colorado must be Sig's grandson, Sigman Byrd III. He even has his own website.

http://sigmanbyrd.com/Site/Home.html

The odds that two men could have the name Sigman Byrd and not be related are impossible to calculate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
readam

readam

Posted
Posted

I'm fascinated at learning that the name "Sigman Byrd" lives on, in the form of a teacher and poet at the University of Colorado. He just has to be related to Houston's Sig Byrd. The Houston Press article mentions Sig's son Sigman Byrd Junior, who was a Houston banker when the article was written in 1994. This guy in Colorado must be Sig's grandson, Sigman Byrd III. He even has his own website.

http://sigmanbyrd.com/Site/Home.html

The odds that two men could have the name Sigman Byrd and not be related are impossible to calculate.

The Colorado prof's picture and Mr. Byrd's are too spookingy close ...great article in the modern Press

Link to comment
Share on other sites
mkultra25

mkultra25

Posted
Posted

I'm fascinated at learning that the name "Sigman Byrd" lives on, in the form of a teacher and poet at the University of Colorado. He just has to be related to Houston's Sig Byrd. The Houston Press article mentions Sig's son Sigman Byrd Junior, who was a Houston banker when the article was written in 1994. This guy in Colorado must be Sig's grandson, Sigman Byrd III. He even has his own website.

http://sigmanbyrd.com/Site/Home.html

The odds that two men could have the name Sigman Byrd and not be related are impossible to calculate.

I would bet money that Sigman Byrd the poet is Sigman Byrd the newspaperman's grandson. The SSDI lists a Sigman Byrd who was born in 1909 and died in 1987, which would put him within the right age range to be the grandfather of someone my age. And I am certain that Sigman Byrd the poet is about my age, because I met him once years ago here in Houston.

In the early 80s, I was heading into my senior year at St. Thomas High School. At the time, one of the teachers there offered creative writing classes focusing on poetry to interested students, as a sideline to his regular teaching job. Every year, at the conclusion of those classes, he'd have an informal get-together in the evening at his house for the students to read some of their recent work to a small group of invited family, friends, and other faculty members. The year I was in the class, I showed up for the reading and soon became aware of a guy I'd never seen before with an intense presence about him, not least due to the imposing full mohawk he was sporting. It was Sigman Byrd, who I soon gathered had transferred out of St. Thomas the year before I transferred in (at the beginning of my junior year).

It was clear that he was highly respected by the other students. I soon realized why when he read one of his recent poems, because his writing was on a level far beyond anyone else there, even at that young age. I am not surprised that he subsequently pursued poetry as a vocation, because he was obviously gifted.

I had no idea who Sig Byrd the newspaperman was at the time, and didn't discover his work until much later, but if Sig Byrd Jr. is a banker, I guess the writing gene must've skipped a generation before asserting itself once again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Earlydays

Earlydays

Posted
Posted

Sure do! You can find them all over here.

http://blogs.chron.com/bayoucityhistory/sigman_byrd/

One thing I haven't been able to find is a photograph of the guy. Chron and Press files don't have pictures of him. The best I could do was this scan from an article that appeared in the Press after the Texas City explosion.

byrd041.jpg

I went to the University of St. Thomas, class of 1968, and I had a classmate named Steve Byrd. He looked a lot like the picture above...I wonder if he was his son, or related in some other way??

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Poppahop

Poppahop

Posted
Posted

I went to the University of St. Thomas, class of 1968, and I had a classmate named Steve Byrd. He looked a lot like the picture above...I wonder if he was his son, or related in some other way??

One of Byrd's sons was killed in Vietnam...

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 months later...
57Tbird

57Tbird

Posted
Posted

I just contacted the Sig Byrd in Colorado to inquire if he was the grandson of this Sig Byrd. His reply was...

"Indeed, I am the grandson of Sig Byrd. I, too, am a writer. Guess I have a love of

words in the ol' genes.

I've also heard my grandfather's book is quite popular in Houston these days.

Right now I live in Boulder, CO, and I have not been back to visit

Houston in thirteen years. In fact, I haven't lived there since the early eighties,

although I did live in Austin for six years in the nineties."

I gave him the HAIF link. Maybe he will respond with some more info on his granddad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
gonzo1976

gonzo1976

Posted
Posted

I just contacted the Sig Byrd in Colorado to inquire if he was the grandson of this Sig Byrd. His reply was...

"Indeed, I am the grandson of Sig Byrd. I, too, am a writer. Guess I have a love of

words in the ol' genes.

I've also heard my grandfather's book is quite popular in Houston these days.

Right now I live in Boulder, CO, and I have not been back to visit

Houston in thirteen years. In fact, I haven't lived there since the early eighties,

although I did live in Austin for six years in the nineties."

I gave him the HAIF link. Maybe he will respond with some more info on his granddad.

His book is popular, but unfortunately, it's out of print. Oh it can be found online, but that's about the only place to find it.

However, a few months back I purchased a copy of Byrd's book at an estate sale for 25 cents. I already had one copy of his book, but no way was I going to pass up getting another copy at that price.

I haven't decided what to do with it. Maybe I'll give it away on the blog.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 1 year later...
  • 1 month later...
FilioScotia

FilioScotia

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks to JR Gonzales at the Chronicle, here's one of the late great Sig Byrd's columns from 1954, with a few of his famously droll observations about life in Houston and other Texas places.

Sig Byrd was one of the great ones, and he was one of the last of that early and mid 19th century breed of newspapermen who really wore out the shoe leather talking to people and gathering stories.

http://blog.chron.co...ltitude-flight/

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 5 years later...
rkimberly

rkimberly

Posted
Posted

For those interested in a written history of Houston back in the 40s and 50s, there was a Houston Press columnist named Sig Byrd who wrote 6 times for much of the year,  He started publishing his "Strolling in Houston" column in late 1947.   These columns touched upon the many people and places Sig encountered in Houston; bar owners, bouncers, poets, painters, winos, housewives, and many more.  He often would cite full names of people and addresses of home and businesses.  He eventually turned some of these columns into a book, "Sig Byrd's Houston" 1955.

I've been scanning his columns and posting them online here (1947, 1948, 1950, 1951).  Additionally, there's a Facebook page (The Sig Byrd Digital Archive) that posts regularly and a google map that shows assorted locations mentioned in his columns.

He's an interesting writer, operating in the style of Joseph Mitchell (The New Yorker, "McSorley's Wonderful Saloon") and Nelson Algren (Man with the Golden Arm.) 

I hope this might interest a few of you here on the HAIG site.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 years later...
mkultra25

mkultra25

Posted
Posted
21 hours ago, Scott Geyer said:

Would love to obtain a copy of Sig Byrd's Houston at a reasonable price if anyone knows of source(s). Many thanks sgeyer@mac.com

 

Create a saved search at eBay and a want at abebooks.com. Occasionally copies pop up at both sites for under $100. The asking prices for currently-available copies are insane. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • The title was changed to Sig Byrd High Lights Of Houston

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing
All of the HAIF
None of the ads!
HAIF+
Just
$5!


×
×
  • Create New...