Giles McCrary

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Giles Connell McCrary, Sr.
Mayor of Post, Garza County, Texas
In office 1969 – 1991

Born	November 5, 1919 (1919-11-05) (age 88) Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas, USA
Political party	Republican
Spouse	Helen Louise McCrary (born 1920, married since 1940)
Children	Mary L. McCrary Giles McCrary, Jr. (born 1952) Pamela McCrary (1945-1979)
Occupation	Rancher; Businessman; Philanthropist
(1) Former Mayor Giles McCrary has played a major part in the revival of tourism in his town of Post, Texas, south of Lubbock. (2) In 2002, McCrary was instrumental in bringing the Vatican Museum Collection to Texas Tech University. (3) McCrary is one of the founders of the National Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech.

Giles Connell McCrary, Sr. (born November 5, 1919), is a self-employed oil operator, investor, art collector, rancher, and the owner of the OS Ranch Museum in Post, the seat of Garza County, southeast of Lubbock on the Texas South Plains. A strong civic leader, McCrary was the mayor of Post from 1969-1991; in Texas, all mayors are elected on a nonpartisan ballot. McCrary, however, is a Republican, having contributed in recent years to many GOP candidates as well as the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

McCrary was born in Fort Worth, the seat of Tarrant County, in north Texas. In 1940, while still twenty, he married his wife Helen Louise (born 1920). They have a daughter, Mary L. McCrary, and a son, Giles C. McCrary, Jr. (born 1952), and four grandchildren. A second daughter, Pamela McCrary, died in 1979 at the age of thirty-four.

During World War II, McCrary entered the United States Army's 63rd Infantry Division. He was in the first unit to cross the Rhine River and to penetrate Germany prior to the surrender to the Allied forces. McCrary assisted in the liberation of one concentration camp. It was during his military service, when he often went to concerts and museums, that he acquired his interest in art.

The OS Ranch Museum is one of three museums in Post, a small town known for its hospitality and its encouragement of tourism. McCrary features works by many Southwestern artists that depict Texas in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His museum includes works which he has collected over many years from trips throughout the world, including Vatican City in Rome. In addition to its western works, the museum hosts cases of Faberge eggs, textiles, and ivory carvings from the Far East. Although it is now illegal to bring ivory into the United States, McCrary acquired his samples when importation was permitted. In 2002, McCrary helped to bring the Vatican Museums Collection to Texas Tech University in Lubbock. The collection of medieval frescoes and paintings attracted some 133,000 visitors.

While McCrary is a generous benefactor to Texas Tech, he graduated in 1942 from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, an institution headed by General Robert E. Lee during the last five years of Lee's life.

In addition to being treasurer for the Vatican Museums Collection, McCrary has financed the education of more than two hundred Texas Tech students in recent years. According to Wanda Mitchell, Post's Commerce and Tourism Bureau president, McCrary pays the tuition of about twenty students each year but prefers not to speak of his philanthrophic endeavors.

In 2005, McCrary was one of five individuals, including Jim Humphreys, former manager of the Pitchfork Ranch east of Lubbock, who received the Founders Award from the National Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech, which offers a highly acclaimed free outdoor museum on the Tech campus. The award is given to people who have made the ranching center, along with its inside museum, a priority in their lives. The McCrarys also support Texas Tech through the Ershel A. Franklin Charitable Trust, named for McCrary's partner in the oil business. Franklin died in 1980, and McCrary is the sole trustee for the trust.

McCrary's grandfather sold part of his ranch to the legendary cereal maker Charles William Post in the early 20th century. McCrary still owns part of the original ranch that his grandfather purchased from Clarence Scharbauer of Midland. McCrary returned to Post in the late 1940s to run the family ranching operation. He has left since only for vacations and business and art-collecting trips. He has visited more than one hundred countries on all continents, including Antarctica, which he has toured three times with National Geographic magazine. Despite such extensive travels, McCrary says that he would not live in a large city because he prefers the camaraderie of life in a small west Texas town such as Post.

McCrary said that he believes his town of Post would be the size of Lubbock had C.W. Post lived to fulfill his dream of creating a self-sustaining community. Post, who was in poor health for much of his life, died just before his sixtieth birthday and was in Texas for only seven years.

In addition to the museums, Post promotes tourism through its restored Garza Theater and its Hotel Garza, an 11-room bed and breakfast. The town has been featured on Bob Phillips' Texas Country Reporter syndicated television program.