Texas Rangers inspire new Smith Furniture collection
By Gary Evans -- Furniture Today, February 6, 2005
Waco, Texas — Smith Furniture Mfg. and the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum are partnering for a line of Ranger-inspired furniture.
The collection's wood pieces will be introduced at the Tupelo market, Feb. 17–20, if they arrive in time from Asia, said Mark Smith, vice president of the family-owned company. Upholstered pieces are set for an April High Point intro.
"The lore of the Texas Rangers is incredible," said Smith. "There are lots of stories about them. They've been around since the early 1800s."
Smith Furniture Mfg. and the museum are both based in Waco. Mark Smith was at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in May when a representative from the museum presented a program on licensing and how it's used to help fund the institution. "I asked them about furniture and they said they had someone a few years ago make furniture but it was only onesies and twosies." That discussion led to a contract.
The program is expected to include a chair decorated with a Rangers badge from the early 1800s, a swivel sheriff's office chair, rockers for adults and children, toy chests and a writing desk. An office chair would run in the neighborhood of $350 to $399 retail.
For the upholstery, Smith has been working with fabric suppliers to develop a cover with a Ranger flavor for High Point. Themes could go rustic, back to the early days of the Rangers, or follow the golden age of gangsters "when the Rangers were heavy into that. That would call for something a little more sleek and sexy," said Smith. (When Depression-era bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde died in a hail of bullets, the slugs were from Ranger weapons.)
Smith has been in the museum researching its archives and photo collections for ideas to incorporate into the furniture.
He said the collection could open new lines of distribution for the company, including U.S. and foreign television shopping networks.
"At the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum, we're in a unique position," said Scott Williams, the museum's director of marketing. "We're a non-profit entity representing a legend whose name carries a lot of equity.... We receive inquiries on a weekly basis from businesses wanting to receive our seal of approval. It's a nice position to be in."
Smith doesn't know how much appeal the collection might have outside Texas but notes that the Rangers are internationally known, with the museum's Web site (www.texasranger.org) getting hits from every state and overseas. The Rangers are surprisingly popular in Japan and also in countries like Germany, where reruns of the TV series "Dallas" still air frequently.
