Editor's Note: This story was originally published Sept. 27, 2016. We're bringing it back to honor the fifth anniversary of the Big Tex fire.

At first, Clay Stinnett thought it was a photoshopped joke.

Big Tex on fire? Come on. Can't be.

The Dallas artist had a large stack of Big Tex canvases ready for fall-time flea markets. At least 10 to 15 paintings with the larger-than-life cowboy smiling gleefully were ready for sale.

When Stinnett realized the grotesque images of Big Tex surrounded by smoke and flame he saw online were no joke, he didn't even bother putting on jeans before picking up the canvases and adding large orange flames to each.

Artist Clay Stinnett with a print of his original flame-themed Big Tex painting at Double Wide bar in Dallas. ((Ashley Landis / Staff Photographer))

"It was really kind of a beautiful disaster," Stinnett said. "It was divine intervention."

In those five minutes or so when he went from a kitschy cowboy to a charred metal frame, the idea of Big Tex transformed. The gruesome sight of singed jeans and burning fiberglass sparked a certain kind of macabre fascination.

In that moment, Big Tex was reborn. In that moment, Big Tex went punk.

By the afternoon, Stinnett was on TV talking about his memorial pieces. He created a version of the cowboy as "Saint of the Corn Dogs" in a Virgin of Guadalupe motif. He created a skull-and-crossbones image with Big Tex's face and crossed Corny Dogs.

They were instant hits.

For the next two years or so, all people wanted from Stinnett was Big Tex ... aflame, of course.

Now, Stinnett won't paint the flaming cowboy without a significant markup in price. The demand is still there, and he knows he can instantly sell out of prints if he does another batch of the Big Tex posters. But Stinnett just got tired of painting the same melting visage again and again.

"I really got burnt out," he said. No pun intended.

A tale of two Texes

Big Tex is warm and welcoming, the perfect gentleman and guide to everything the fair has to offer. He reigned over the State Fair from 1952 to 2012 and his slicker cousin took his place in 2013 after the fire.

That original Big Tex, with the big grin and low drawl, holds a special place in the hearts of Texans. It's hard to imagine the State Fair without him.

There's another vision of Big Tex, rooted in how he was felled by fire on the last Friday of the 2012 fair. Around 10 a.m., there was a spark in his boot. Wispy smoke started rising out of his collar and soon his entire frame was wrapped in thick flame and black smoke. Police and firefighters were sent to the scene but it was too late.

"Got a rather tall cowboy with all his clothes burned off," one officer said. "Howdy, folks. It's hot."

It was an emotional moment for most Texans. Mourners left yellow roses at his State Fair perch. Some wept in public, trying to make sense of the tragedy.

Yet the hard truth is Big Tex was never perfect. He champions a very particular worldview of what Texas should be. Big Tex represents a clean, whitewashed ideal that directs your attention into the glimmering fair and away from the impoverished neighborhood outside.

Big Tex burns at the State Fair of Texas on Oct. 19, 2012 in Dallas. (Christian Bradford)

He wants you to come spend money — lots of it, at times — on unhealthy food and other amusements. And that toothy grin, almost creepy in its ever-presence, seems to be hiding something.

When Big Tex burned, his demise was a schadenfreude icon. The hollow frame he left behind was symbolic of what he represented, said Jack Russell, a North Texas artist whose linoleum prints have depicted the death of Big Tex.

"It's just such an absurd spectacle," Russell said. "Just the fact that he exists in the first place is silly, then seeing that giant thing burn. Some people love it because it's a horror show."

Like most children who grew up in North Texas, Russell would go visit Big Tex regularly. When he heard Big Tex burned, Russell felt guilty about not going to see the aging cowboy in a few years, likening him to an old relative who dies unexpectedly.

"It's like, 'Oh, why does this affect me? Why do I have feelings? It's this big silly thing,'" he said. "It's like watching Santa Claus burn."

He didn't want to make art right away. He said that was just a little too macabre. Even today, nearly four fairs after the fire, Russell said he still gets queasy watching the video of Big Tex's demise.

Instead, Russell's depictions of the goofy cowboy are meant more to honor the memory of Big Tex. In one print, Tex has a Day of the Dead-style skull face with arms crossed -- a Corny Dog in one hand and a turkey leg in the other — and flames behind.

In another, Russell sainted Big Tex, turning his hat into a halo and making his hands offer a sign of benediction while holding a small flame. He sells votive candles with that image, but didn't realize until after he placed an order for the candles that it's like he's asking his customers to burn Big Tex all over again.

"I'm basically portraying his death in both pieces," Russell said. "He's always been there, you see him when you're a little kid, you grow up with him. Then he's stoically smiling and waving as his face melts away. Classic Big Tex."

New Tex for new times

A large oil canvas of Big Tex's final grin contrasted against a red-orange sky meets customers at Shannon Wynne's Mudhen Meat and Greens restaurant in the Farmers Market. In the men's restroom, a series of photos depict the 2012 blaze.

For Wynne, it was the end of an era. He grew up with the old, imperfect Big Tex and remembers his papier-mache grin , extra-large hat and booming voice that didn't quite match his jaw.

"We emulated that voice growing up," Wynne said. "The new Big Tex doesn't capture that."

Don Graham is a professor of English at the University of Texas who studies Texas culture. He remembers going on field trips as a kid to see Big Tex. He was a meeting point, a comical photo prop and a welcome sight each fall.

That cowboy image, however, contradicted with stereotypes of what Dallas thought of itself. While the glitz and glamour of big money metropolitanism dominated what people thought Dallas should be, Big Tex represented a more rural, down-home relative.

"It kind of clashes with the image Dallas has wanted to present," Graham said. "He's not like J.R. Ewing. He's not rich. He's like an uncle."

The new Big Tex, which was unveiled in 2013. (Tom Fox / Staff Photographer)

The new Big Tex is slicker, more modern. Almost too perfect, Wynne said. His rubbery face is too clean. His voice aligns with his jaw.

"It was a passage to the new Dallas, and probably good riddance," Wynne said. "But you can't help but get sentimental."

A permanent memorial

Even though Dan Trujillo left Texas in 2002, he still introduces himself as a Texan. He used to visit Big Tex all the time as a kid from Plano, and mourned from his new home in Oregon when his brother texted him a photo of the burning cowboy.

"When I thought of Dallas, I thought of Big Tex," he said. "It's just such a landmark thing for Texas."

A few years later, he was contemplating getting a tattoo to honor his home state. He didn't want the usual cliches like longhorns or the Alamo, but something unique. And what's more unique than a burning effigy of a large cowboy?

He saw online that Daniel Brockett, a Denton-based tattoo artist, would be visiting his new hometown for a tattoo festival and sent a message with a few ideas. They shot a few drafts back and forth and finally settled on a design that showed Big Tex's face and belt-buckle, but also his metal frame wrapped in smoke and flame.

"From an artistic standpoint, it's so crazy and big," Brockett said. "It was a good life and death."

It took six hours to complete the tattoo, which stretches down Trujillo's left leg. While Brockett worked, the pair joked about conspiracy theories. Big Tex was aging, and one little spark lit the whole thing? And now the State Fair gets a shiny new mascot? Suspicious.

When it was done, Brockett posted a photo on Instagram. Some people thought the tattoo was disrespectful, but Trujillo and Brockett maintain they meant it as a memorial to the cowboy in his final moments.

"I loved everything about it," Trujillo said.

He said some people at his work thought Big Tex was a mariachi musician and questioned why he got the tattoo. Brockett said that makes the piece even better.

"Tattoos really work when they're really personal," Brockett said. "Some people get it and some people don't."

Self (portrait) immolation

Dallas artist Brian K. Jones was painting self-portraits of himself as Big Tex long before the 2012 fire. Jones said his similar facial features made it easy to duplicate himself as the big, welcoming cowboy.

When Big Tex went up in flames, Jones said it was like watching an effigy of himself burn. He knew he had to address it through art.

A still image from the animation of Meanwhile... back in Dallas by Brian K. Jones, which debuted at Ro2 Art gallery downtown in 2013. (Brian K. Jones)

"It kind of had the same feel as the Hindenburg," Jones said. "I couldn't not look at it."

What came out was a well-received series called Meanwhile...back in Dallas, which debuted at Ro2 Art gallery downtown. The show included nearly 50 individual works in various shapes and sizes that show a burning Big Tex — with Jones' face — from every angle. Jones also stitched the images together into an animation.

Later, he was contacted by the Austin rock band White Denim, which commissioned Jones to make a digital animation work inspired by the burning cowboy. The video features the band members illustrated to look like Big Tex while flames dance in the background.

Jones has revisited the subject in more of his recent work. Although, like Stinnett, Jones says he's moved past Big Tex, his hyperbolic image and death is too big to ignore.

"He's beyond a mascot. He's a happy greeter, like a Walmart greeter," Jones said. "In Texas, Big Tex is bigger than Santa Claus."