Way out West

The next morning we set off to find the walkway under the new, opened in 2007, highway 93 bridge, (it’s at the end of MacDonalds car park) as we headed into Wickenburg across the old road bridge and the usually dry Hassayampa River.

 

Our first stop was the Horseshoe Café for breakfast and very scrummy it was too, so much so that we were forced to return a couple of times.

The visitor centre is in the old station and the very helpful lady gave us lots of information, one of which was a walking tour of the town, a very good way to walk of our huge breakfast! 

Around the town statues depict scenes from Wickenburg life, they’re made of some sort of metal, are very lifelike and the detail is amazing.   The one by the station shows a new school teacher arriving in town in the early 1900’s.

Mrs Elizabeth Smith the original owner of the Hassayampa Hotel welcoming guests in the late 1800’s.

For lack of a jail outlaws were chained to this tree from 1863 – 1890, escapes were unknown and at first glance we thought it was actually a real person sitting under the tree and we weren’t the only ones to think that either!

There were quite a few other statues around town, later on I even carefully walked around this ‘spider’ before I realized it was another statue.

We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours in the Desert Caballeros Western Museum it’s an amazing museum with some fabulous exhibits, photography isn’t allowed.  

We stopped by the Garcia Little Red Schoolhouse that was built in 1905 and is on the historic register but unfortunately for us we could only look outside as it was closed.

Henry Wickenburg, the founder of both the Vulture Mine and the town of Wickenburg.

A few more photographs around Wickenburg

I love carousels and this caught my eye as we walked back, not quite sure how exactly it would fit in the fiver though!

Have fun, we are!