Artist: Chuck Caplinger of Twentynine Palms, CA
Dedicated: October 23, 1999
Size: 15’ x 60’
Location: 72252 29 Palms Hwy. (Smoketree Bldg.) – Mural removed 2007

This mural featured the desert critters that inhabit the desert valley and neighboring Joshua Tree National Park, which encompasses nearly 800,000 acres and many species of wildlife within its protective boundaries. The mural had to be removed in 2007, after irreparable damage occurred to the wall, due in part to the harsh desert wind and sun.

Building owners later commissioned artist Chuck Caplinger to paint two new 60-foot murals of desert critters on its Smoketree Building, which now has a gigantic lizard on the east wall, “Dipsosaurus dorsalis,” and a roadrunner on the west wall, “Grococcyx californianus.”