It all started in 1986 when the city was awarded funds for an urban renewal project. A portion of these funds were set aside to begin the “mural project”. The success of this project has led to the expansion of the Delta Public Art Committee which is currently continuing the mural project and initiating a new program for sculpture and other 3 dimensional media art in public places.
In this series of multi-caches, the coordinates given are a virtual (the mural) from which you will gather information to find the second stage which will contain the log to be signed. The second stage has a connection to the first, perhaps only in the owners’ minds, but can you read our minds?
From the coordinates given, look south to view this mural.
This was the fifth mural to be painted in Delta. Artist Ginny Allen completed it in 1989. Though a central cameo depicts the distinctive “tower” of the old Delta County Bank building, the rest of the mural highlights natural aspects of our area…blue skies, mountains on the horizon, aspen trees, and the distinctive “adobes”.
Delta County Bank started in 1883 in the location where Tara’s is today. Then, in 1892, it built a fine building on the southwest corner of Third and Main. When the bank failed in 1929, a casualty of the Depression, the building acquired new owners and tenants. Three generations of Fairlamb family attorneys used the same second floor offices to conduct their business, while street-level tenants included grocery stores, restaurants, saloons, retail stores and others. Today this building proudly houses the Delta Area Chamber of Commerce, the Brick Wall Eatery restaurant and other upstairs tenants.
Aspens are best suited to higher elevations and very low air pollution, so the ones you see around town are very precious, for they have challenges at 5,000 feet with the air pollution of even a small community. Many of them have sickened and are a dying breed within the city and at this elevation.
The ‘Dobies look barren and stark in the twenty-first century, but it was different before the Utes were expelled in 1881 and settlers of European decent moved onto the land with their sheep and cattle. In those days the 'dobies were covered in grass "up to a horse’s belly". Within a few decades, over-grazing of the fragile grasses depleted them and the ground mulch that they self-provided to protect their root systems and retain moisture in the soil. Several attempts to re-establish these grasses have failed as they need copious amounts of water for a number of years until they are established and have accumulated the natural "mulch" they need to survive. The ‘Dobies are also discussed at traditional cache GC5JXPC and The Awesome ‘Dobie Badlands by Muriel Marshall.
Note: Traditional cache GC1277K is the only surviving cache of the original Delta: City of Murals series set back in 2007 (thank you, cacheclique). Since it features this mural, we almost didn’t include Delta’s most northerly mural in the new series of multi-caches. However, I couldn’t resist, so did a multi for this mural, too..
To find the second stage and log this cache, subtract 1.023 from the given North coordinate to find the 2nd stage N.
West coordinate: 108 04.24A , A = number of aspen in the mural foreground.
To lower risk of muggle detection, approach second stage from parking lot via back side of the building. Owner has given permission to use this site.
WOW! FTF goes to crawfordcollins who found it & had it logged in less than 2.5hrs from publication!