San Antonio's Toilet Seat Art Museum owner Barney Smith dead at 98

FILE - Barney Smith poses with some of the 600 exhibits Thursday, May 10, 2001 at his Toilet Seat Museum. FILE - Barney Smith poses with some of the 600 exhibits Thursday, May 10, 2001 at his Toilet Seat Museum. Photo: Bahram Mark Sobhani/San Antonio Express-News Photo: Bahram Mark Sobhani/San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 27 Caption Close San Antonio's Toilet Seat Art Museum owner Barney Smith dead at 98 1 / 27 Back to Gallery

One of San Antonio's most beloved and quirky curators has passed away.

Barney Smith, owner, creator and collector of the Toilet Seat Art Museum died Tuesday at 98, his family shared on a Facebook page dedicated to the world-famous attraction of rows and rows of decorated commode lids.

In the post, the family shared a poem by Rudyard Kipling titled "When Earth's Last Picture Is Painted." When speaking with the San Antonio Express-News in 2017, the "King of the Commode" recited the poetry and added that it was his favorite to share with all the travelers who stopped by the museum at his Alamo Heights home.

"Yesterday he passed on from this world," the family said online. "He will be missed."

RELATED: Barney Smith's Toilet Seat Art Museum is moving to North Texas

Back in 2017, Smith, a former master plumber, told the Express-News he started his collection — one that would eventually surpass 1,000 commode covers — by just adding a few embellishments like antlers.

He'd sometimes stay up until 4 a.m., turning the seats into ornate pieces of art. Eventually fans and friends started sharing pieces of history for Smith to add to his covers like pieces of the Berlin Wall, barbed wire from Auschwitz, Saddam Hussein's toilet and NASA's space shuttle Challenger.

The family decided to put the museum up for auction in 2017 and was purchased by Texas Truck Yard Owner Jason Boso to be featured at The Colony, just north of Dallas. The relocated museum opened to the public in June and Smith was "overjoyed," according to the Facebook page.

Madalyn Mendoza is a breaking news reporter and general assignment writer. Read her on our breaking news site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com | mmendoza@mysa.com | @MaddySkye