The Beatty Mural

The Beatty Mural

If you have driven through Beatty you have seen it. Ninety two feet of painted wall, ten feet high, with a steam engine pulling into the old Beatty depot, burros out on the road, and folks standing on the platform waiting for the train. What most people do not know is that the wall itself was not there until the fall of 2007. It was built from bare ground and painted by hand, and the whole thing took about seven months.

Building the Wall

Before anybody could paint anything, somebody had to build something to paint on. Danny Rogers set the poles on October 6, 2007, and the support rails started going up that same afternoon. More rails went on through the middle of the month, and the first OSB panels were installed on October 10. By the 15th there was framing support added on the back of the wall and a dirt bank built up in front of it. Flashing went on the top and side edges on the 24th. Then came the Paintlock steel panels on the 25th and 26th, and the last of them was screwed down on October 31. That is 25 days from bare ground to a wall that was ready for paint.

Priming and Drawing

The wall was primed in December of 2007 and then it sat through the winter. In early February the drawing was transferred onto the wall, and that is the part nobody thinks about. You cannot walk up to ninety two feet of steel and just start painting. The whole scene has to be laid out at full size first, and that work happened before a drop of color went on.

Painting the Mural

First paint went on February 27, 2008. From there it was steady work through the spring, a day here and a day there. February 29th and March 1st, then the 3rd, 7th, 10th, 13th, 14th, 18th and 28th. April brought the 3rd, 14th, 18th, 26th and 27th. May picked back up on the 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th, and the painting was finished on May 14, 2008, about seven months after the first pole went in the ground.