Someone asked me about my Mural Project that I started a couple weeks back where I was trying to locate various exterior murals around the County. I was going to feature as many outdoor murals in the County as I could. However, after profiling a couple murals that I knew about, I hit a wall (literally!) on locating additional ones.
However, I have stumbled upon a few more that I will feature here on the BB. First up, let’s go back to high school.
I was up County the other day and swung by Chopticon High School to take a photo of their famous barn which features a graffiti-covered mural. Every year Chopticon’s graduating seniors are allowed to paint the barn as part of a tradition that started back when Choticon first opened in 1965.
I was a little surprised to see that the barn is now more of a movie-set barn to put it nicely. (In Ridge-boy terms – it is a half-assed barn – literally.) Here is my photo of it and yes I do believe that that is a Porto Potty next to it. They must have gotten tired of folks peeing on the barn I guess.)
Wondering how and why the barn is the way it is, I hit the old Google machine and learned that the original barn was torn down in 1996 to make way for renovations and expansion of Chopticon High School.
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| http://stmalib.archivalweb.com/ |
And then in 2003 the barn that replaced the original one, was burned down by arsonists. I could not locate any additional info as to whether or not the culprits were ever found.
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| http://stmalib.archivalweb.com |
Later in 2003 the movie set barn was erected.
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| http://stmalib.archivalweb.com/imageViewer.php?i=1472072&q=barn |
As murals go, the Chopticon barn probably wouldn’t be classified as a true mural. That said however, it sure has a storied background.