The story of our mural begins in 1987. When the new store was built, Craig had purchased a decor package from Our Own Hardware that included blue and orange striped wallpaper to fill up the empty space at the top of the walls. It remained there for a few years, but when Our Own was sold and we switched to True Value, it didn’t make sense to keep the wallpaper anymore. After much brainstorming, Paul had the idea to highlight and represent many of the places around the country that the Sagehorn family had traveled to over the years. Since they had visited nearly every state, he decided they should start on the East Coast and finish on the West Coast. However, the country isn’t a straight line, so they had to figure out how to include something from each state in as close to a semblance of order as they could.

Paul knew of a local artist, Tommy Orrico, who was quite good at painting. He contacted him, pitched the idea, and they agreed on a price. He started the painting on the south wall with New York, and as it was the 90s, placed the Twin Towers front and center. The Sagehorn family had made a trip to New York City in a previous year, and had visited the top of one of the towers, so this felt like a great way to begin. As Tommy painted, the amount of detail and care he put into it was breathtaking, but also quite time consuming. What they believed would only take a few months, dragged on into several years. After a while, it became difficult to get Tommy in to work on the mural. He had been paid almost in full, but had only completed about 3/4 of it. After waiting a long time for him to return, Craig decided to find someone else to finish it. While the style was close, it wasn’t quite the same. The mural was finally completed in the mid-2000s, stretching all the way around the store. It has been featured in the Sparta paper, and has intrigued many to come and visit to see it.

We hope having it available to view virtually will bring back memories for some and inspire others to come see it for themselves!

The mural begins on the south wall of the store with the state of New York. It works its way around the walls clockwise, geographically moving from the Northeast down the East coast, then westward across Appalachia, the Midwest, the Plains, and the Rockies, to the West coast. Alaska and Hawaii round it out on the north wall. The front (east wall) of the store is also painted, to reflect both the history of The Hardware Store, but also to show some of our favorite parts of Sparta.

Below you will find a gallery of photos showing the artwork, split into small panoramas to better view each section. The end of each section continues on into the following row below it. It is best viewed on a computer or by turning your phone horizontally.