Eponymously Wickenburg
As small towns go, Wickenburg has a familiar pedigree. Like many adventurous southwestern pioneers before and after him, Henry Wickenburg, a Prussian prospector, first came to the region searching for gold. He’s credited with having found it in the mid-19th century, building what he later dubbed the Vulture Mine. The operation was prosperous for many decades, yielding as much as $70 million worth of gold during its run, making it the most important gold mine in Arizona.
Soon after, Henry Wickenburg turned what was nothing more than a ramshackle mining camp into the small town that bears his surname today. With a gold mine to bolster its livelihood, Wickenburg quickly became a prosperous Arizona community. In fact, in 1866, it missed being named Arizona’s Territorial Capital by only two votes of the governing legislature.
And with the arrival of the railroad in 1895, Wickenburg’s modest prosperity was sealed.
A river runs through it
When the precious ore eventually began to peter out, early settlers in the Wickenburg region turned to ranching and farming, relying on the life-sustaining supply of water the nearby Hassayampa River afforded them. The river turned what would have been a dusty, arid desert plain into a fertile grassland that, to this day, offers its residents and visitors a relatively verdant and varied riparian habitat.
Wickenburg draws all of its water needs from the Hassayampa Basin Aquifer, which happens to be one of the best sources for H2O in Arizona. The river itself flows (mostly underground) from its headwaters, nearby Prescott, to its basin, 113 miles south, where it empties into the Gila River.
The river rises to the surface to become a cultural wellspring for the small town. Combined with the Vulture Mountain Recreation Area, the lush Hassayampa River Preserve is a federally designated, 71,000-acre oasis in the desert, rife with vegetation that’s home to a variety of wildlife and approximately 300 different bird species. The vast area offers an abundance of recreational opportunities, campsites and open space with magnificent views of the Sonoran desert.
Native daughter
One of Wickenburg’s staunchest citizen proponents, Dr. Joanne Ruisi, grew up in the town where she now earns her livelihood, as owner and operator of Hassayampa Veterinary Services. Following a four-year stint in the U.S. Navy and then veterinary school, Ruisi spent six years living on the western Pacific island of Guam. But she eventually decided to move back to the small community where she had some strong roots. She opened her clinic in 2012, and says she’s never looked back.
“I love the climate diversity of the state of Arizona and of this particular area,” she says. “I’m also a small-town person, and I especially love the hometown feel and sense of community that Wickenburg offers…where people wave and smile at one another—you don’t get that in a lot of places.”
Inevitably, though, as Ruisi points out, Wickenburg is growing and changing, and she’s had a front-row seat to some of that change.
“Right now, it’s still a small town—comparatively—and, as a business owner, that’s good for us. But one of our challenges is to find the [infrastructure] to help us cope with the growth we’re experiencing,” she explains. “I feel like the town is a really good place for retired folks and families with young kids, but we have to do more to attract young adults and professionals. We have to find that balance.
“I think the town management is doing a pretty good job of helping our town to prosper. We have some really neat businesses in Wickenburg, a lot of little stores and boutiques. It’s easy to walk through downtown to enjoy all of those. And then the town’s economic development people have managed to keep out the big box stores, which is a real positive.”
Finding the balance
Speaking of the town’s official guidance, for roughly a year now since he took the job of Wickenburg Town Manager, Stephen Erno has been positioning himself to address some of the concerns that Joanne Ruisi raised. He is particularly focused on how to accommodate Wickenburg’s increasing popularity as a great place to live while, at the same time, preserving its rich cultural and historical heritage.
The influx of people—visitors and full-time residents, as well—is both a virtue and a challenge for the community.
“The town population does swell in the wintertime, with people trying to spend that season in a warmer climate,” Erno says. “Visitors’ attraction to the town is obvious. One of the things about Wickenburg is how much charm it exudes.
“While it’s become a modern town in so many respects, it still retains that Old West feel, that character, especially during our team roping competition times. It’s one of the few towns in the country where you can see authentic cowboys walking up and down the main streets. And these aren’t people just dressing the part—they’re genuine cowboys and cowgirls, people that live the life. It makes Wickenburg a true western town.”
Celebrating that Old West charm, the famed Desert Caballeros Museum is maintained to serve that cause. Located in the middle of downtown, the museum’s main goal is to expand the understanding of values and traditions of the West. And it does precisely that with a wide array of world-class historic and cultural art exhibits. Among its collections, the museum is proud to exhibit several works by two giants of western narrative realism: Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell.
