The Preservationists: Brad Oldham Goes Beyond The Bird And Into History
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The odds are you know the name Brad Oldham. And odds are, you likely know Brad Oldham because of the sculpture pictured above.
Yes, Oldham is the artist that has given Dallas some of our most beloved sculptures, from “The Traveling Man” in Deep Ellum to his notorious metal birds perched all over the city. But what you probably don’t know is that Brad is also a dedicated preservationist.
In 2004 he won the Preservation Dallas Craftsmanship Award for his work on the Kirby and Wilson buildings.
Back then, Brad was known as the guy you go to in Dallas when you need something made because, as he told me, “I’m good at figuring out stuff.”
As an artist and a fabricator, he has an innate sensibility of how things work that’s been with him since childhood. He’s the kid that didn’t just take the race car apart, but also build it back better. In eighth grade he convinced a neighbor to let him build their horse barn.
Oldham played plenty of baseball and basketball growing up, and after an athletic scholarship to college, he headed to TCU for his master’s degree. When he graduated, his brother Todd had launched a fashion design business and asked Brad to create buttons for the garments. That led to heading up the production department in the clothing business for a couple of years before branching out on his own.
Brad’s seemingly done it all.
He’s run the ornamental metals division at Phoenix 1 Restoration and Construction, the go-to company for historic preservation. He worked on over 40 Texas courthouses and spent a good bit of time in Las Vegas crafting incredible installations for notable restaurants and hotels.
“With historical work, there is always a story,” Brad said. “You get to know the county commissioners and the locals that have lived in these towns most of their lives and hear their stories. They are awesome people and always so grateful to have us there. The Shackleford County Courthouse in Albany is probably the most gratifying preservation project I’ve worked on. It was the first courthouse restored under the Texas Historic Courthouse Restoration Program. I remember they tore out a wall and found a hidden door with hardware from 1886. We ended up replicating that hardware for the rest of the courthouse.”
Brad also did a substantial amount of work on The Harrison County Courthouse in Marshall.
The Lady of Justice that sits atop the courthouse was completely restored, and eleven eagles around the perimeter were recreated. “They were made of zinc, and every time there was a storm, they had to be taken down, or they’d get beat up,” Brad said. We molded them and cast them out of aluminum.”
Going The Extra Mile
Brad and his wife and artistic partner, Christy Coltrin, have gone way past the extra mile for their projects.
“We worked on a project that involved horsehair, camel hair, and shells from Galveston,” Brad said. “We dug on two beaches in Galveston to find the shells to put back into this cast stone. It’s the research and the fun of the storytelling that I really like.”
Although Brad is an artist first and foremost, he is still lured back to historic preservation work once in a while. It has to be a good fit and make financial sense because it’s not inexpensive to restore anything properly.
“I’ve continued to do some historic preservation work because I’m that guy that figures anything out in 10 questions,” he said.
Indeed, he is.
Click here to learn about more heroes of Dallas historic preservation.
