Wickenburg Booms Again

The once mining boom town then dude ranch capital, is now a team-roping capital and arts center.

- BY PETER CORBETT

A rendering of the new Sigler Western Museum, which is being designed by Studio Ma, which also designed Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West. The new museum is scheduled for completion in summer 2027.

Wickenburg started as a gold mining boom town. It’s been the Dude Ranch Capital and now stakes its claim as Team Roping Capital of the World. Throughout its 162-year history Wickenburg has been a resilient and adaptive Western town.

Wickenburg is all about cowboys and cowgirls riding and roping and appreciating the Western lifestyle in a small town an hour from Phoenix. There are seven roping and rodeo arenas in the Wickenburg area. Team roping is a cowhand sport with two riders on horseback racing to both rope the same elusive steer.

But don't think that Wickenburg is a one-horse town. It’s culturally rich, riding tall in the saddle for a rural Arizona town. The single-screen Saguaro Theater, that opened in 1948, still shows first-run movies and has hosted a cowboy poetry gathering. The Del Webb Center for the Performing Arts and the Desert Caballeros Western Museum are valued community assets. The Bar D Wranglers will perform at the Del Webb Center in December, and the Gatlin Brothers are on the bill in February.

The Western Museum burned down in 1972, but the town rallied to rebuild it three years later.