Growing up, J. B. Manning spent many weekends at his family’s deer lease in South Texas or on another parcel of land they owned outside of Georgetown. He’d sit in the blind for hours, peering through a narrow window and writing in his hunting journal, where he kept meticulous lists of all the animals he’d spotted. “It taught me to be in tune with nature,” he says. Manning now draws on that love of the outdoors to create wooden jigsaw puzzles featuring his photos of Texas and Western landscapes.
Manning, now 43, spent his twenties and thirties “doing the corporate thing” in Houston. In 2011, struggling with burnout, he quit his job at an engineering firm and began a five-year stint on the road, hiking and learning photography. Inspiration struck at Glacier National Park, in Montana, in 2014, as he waited to shoot a waterfall at golden hour. Wishing he could present the scene in a fresh way and remembering a postcard he’d idly cut into pieces a few days earlier, he thought, “Why not puzzles?”
He bought a wide-format printer and a laser cutter, tinkering for a few years before launching Wimberley Puzzle Company in 2017. He named it for the town where he lived at the time, though he was often on the road in his RV with his dog, Rio.
Each puzzle includes “Easter eggs”—or story pieces, as he calls them—cut mostly in the shapes of flora and fauna native to a given area. A frigate bird soars in the sky of a scene from Padre Island National Seashore; a mountain lion climbs a path in a photo from Big Bend. If a customer loses a piece, Manning will make a replacement for free.
He used cardboard at first, selling about two hundred puzzles a month. Then came the pandemic puzzle boom of 2020—he sold more than 3,500 puzzles that May alone. When supply chains collapsed and he couldn’t find cardboard, he switched to wood. He had to increase his prices a bit, but customers loved the swap. Birch puzzles remain his signature item.
Manning recently moved to just outside of Corrigan, about 95 miles northeast of Houston, where Rio has an acre on which to roam. “Basically I bought the dog a yard, and I happen to have a place to work and sleep,” he laughs. Like the satisfying click of one of his wooden pieces, it fits just right.
J. B. Manning with a Big Bend National Park puzzle.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
A “story piece” from a Big Bend National Park puzzle.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
Inside J. B. Manning’s home studio, just outside of Corrigan.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
Finished puzzle pieces being prepped for packaging.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
Manning cutting wood stock down to puzzle dimensions.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
Puzzle boxes being photographed for the Wimberley Puzzle Company website.
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
A Texas-shaped “story piece.”
Photograph by Jeff Wilson
This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “His Pictures Are Worth a Thousand Pieces.” Subscribe today.
