Stonehenge II, a replica of the 5,000-year-old icon in England, stands in a field in Hunt, draws many visitors each year lured by its majesty and mystery.

“I don’t know where they all hear about it, but that’s one of the most popular things,” said Jo Anne Gray of the West Kerr County Chamber of Commerce.

This year, Stonehenge II had a big role in NBC’s “Friday Night Lights” television series when a scene was shot there.

Besides its prominent listing with local chambers of commerce and the visitor’s bureau as one of Kerr County’s most interesting places to visit, it has been the site of Shakespeare plays, music album cover photographs and even black-tie socials.

One of the things that make this public place special is that it is on private property – whose owners make it available to everyone – public art.

The late Al Shepperd and Doug Hill, a neighbor, built it. Shepperd’s nephew, also named Al Shepperd, a San Antonio attorney, inherited the property, along with his two sisters.

It’s their intention, he said, to maintain the property – which he noted was once platted to be a trailer park – as is and open to all.

The purpose of the original Stonehenge, located on the Salisbury Plain in southwestern England in unclear, authorities say, but some speculate it was used by ancient peoples as a sacred site, or and astronomical observatory and calendar, it was an engineering feat, though; the four-ton to 50-ton stones were moved many miles, some on barges it is believed.

Shepperd put up a sign recently that tells the history of Stonehenge II, Stonehenge, and Easter Island. The site also has replicas of Easter Island statues.

The new sign also has donation box so visitors can make donations for upkeep of the site. Besides repair costs, the money helps defray liability insurance premiums. Shepperd said he’s been pleasantly surprised by the number of donations.

Hill figures Stonehenge II is 60 percent of the height of the original Stonehenge and 90 percent of its width.

The story of Stonehenge II begins in 1989. Doug Hill, a Hunt mason, tile contractor and builder, had a large rock left over from a patio addition to his house. He wanted to get it off of his trailer, so he asked his neighbor, Shepperd, if he would like to add it to those along his driveway.

Shepperd said, yes, he wanted the rock and asked Hill to drop it off in the middle of his field.

“And then he said, ‘Well, we need to stand it up,’” Hill recalled. “I hadn’t planned on that. Anyway, I had a Jeep at the time, so it wasn’t that bad.”

They cemented it in place. “he was happy with it, so I went off to work,” Hill remembers. Living across from the pasture with the rock in it, Hill watched Shepperd mow around the rock, eventually cutting a large circle around it.