Armchair Travelogues🧭 : Arizona 🖼️ Artscapes: Phoenix Region Street Art – Part 5!

The first time I posted about Wickenburg about an hour north of Phoenix was in August, 2022 featuring some photos from a brief trip during the Covid-19 Pandemic in 2020. Hardly anything was open then, but my partner and I would go driving around to places just to get out of the house! Nobody else was around, so we would look at the historic markers, structures, and any outdoor artworks that were interesting. The mining legacy of Wickenburg was something else that always fascinated me and I had posted about that too. This time around I got to view some great murals and sculpture missed on my last visit and am eager to share some of these today.

I love this view in the left portion of the *long* mural depicting the grizzled old prospector and his sturdy burro traversing the desert 🌵 on the persistent search for gold and silver. Nowadays, it can only be imagined what a tough life it was hoping to eventually strike it rich in the forbidding heat and terrain around Wickenburg in the rustic Arizona Territory of the 1860s. (Photo Source: Author’s ✍️ Collection)

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Getting this picture without sunlight glare was challenging but the mural depicts how Wickenburg was a quintessential Old West railroad and stagecoach hub. The town became a major supply center for the mines in the surrounding area and forts that defended the territory in the mid-19th century. (Photo Source: Author’s ✍️ Collection)

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

Because this mural stretches along the side of an entire building, I wanted to get a better view of the stagecoach. Along with the railroads and the Pony Express, stage lines like Butterfield Overland Mail Company and Wells Fargo & Co. among numerous others were vital to western expansion linking remote areas together long before autos and modern highways 🛣️ replaced them. Wickenburg was a major part of this stage line system, particularly on the Phoenix-Prescott route. (Photo Source: Author’s ✍️ Collection)

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

A cowboy and his horse as the only companion was often a hard, dangerous, and lonely life traveling through the deserts of the Southwest as this sculpture indicates. (Photo Source: Author’s ✍️ Collection)

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

I had to get a closer view of the sculpture shown above. This is titled “Grateful For The Rain” by Joe Beeler (1931-2006). He was a major figure creating many works of contemporary Western art. The gaunt features of the cowboy and his horse clearly illustrate the water deprivation they endured. It can *never* be underestimated how vital an adequate supply of water 💦 is to sustain life in Arizona and other arid locales around the world. (Photo Source: Author’s ✍️ Collection)

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

There are any number of books, magazines, and historical websites informing readers of how many important mining settlements throughout the western states failed and became ghost towns once the rich veins of gold, silver, copper, or other valuable minerals were depleted. Naturally, their residents quickly moved on as other economic opportunities in these hastily set-up places were sorely lacking.

It should be added that a lack of suitable, consistent sources of water prevented these places from developing agriculture or other industries that might have helped them retain their populations and even encourage further growth. Centuries before the arrival of Europeans various Native American communities also failed and moved on because of dwindling water supplies which no longer supported their populations.