Desert Caballeros Museum

In Wickenburg, AZ, the Desert Caballeros Western Museum was our goal today.  The Museum houses world renowned art collections and historic displays.   Visitors meander from exhibitions of traditional and comtemporary art into life-scale scenes that depict the history of Wickenburg and the desert frontier.

The upper part of the museum held this display

Western art and sculptures showed the saddles in use.

Pictures were allowed in that room and in this room which showcased the development of Wickenburg through mining, farming and ranching, and tourism.

The third part of this floor house the core of the Museum collection—the prized works of some of the foremost western painters and sculptors.  I took this picture of a pack train

this small sculpture of “Thanks For The Rain” before I saw the sign banning photos in this area.

Downstairs are lifesized exhibits of a Victorian house from the era (on my left) and a ranch/farm house (right), and several business such as blacksmith, general store, jeweler, hotel, etc.  Here also is one of two saddles that visitors are invited to try.  I didn’t waste time thinking about it.  Felt pretty good to be back in the saddle.  I’m wearing headphones and an electronic receiver.  They are part of the Museum’s free guidePORT audio tour, which adds additional information to that available on the displays.

Patchwork quilt on the bed on the screened porch of the ranch house pictured above.  Each of those little squares are 1’' square—a lotta work!

Deliberate display to show ocotillo ceiling covered  with cloth.  

Small wood stove in the kitchen.  The one in the Victorian house was twice the size.  This display also shows that the walls were finished with a mixture of cement and buttermilk.

Two displays at the jewelers—pipes and beads.

Menu from the Vernetta Hotel, where the railroad passengers got the only decent meal on their trip west.

Next to the Museum is the original Vernetta Hotel, the first brick building in Wickenburg and one of a handful of buildings original to Wickenburg.

Tomorrow we’ll view the rest of the Museum.