Mural, Mural on The Wall

Artist breathes new life into old building

Main Street Glenrock is a passionate group – passionate, that is, about helping the community become everything positive and possible.

One project the members have recently supported is a new mural on the side of the old Glenrock Independent building.

Glenrock Main Street Board member Candy Benedetta said, “We see a lot of potential for the Town of Glenrock.”

On the journey to that goal, Main Street hired artist Dan Toro, of Laramie, to do the mural.

“Main Street solicited bids from artists all over the state. We had about six to eight show interest and the board selected Dan. He’s done a lot of murals around the state,” she said.

The process of painting the various scenes only took Toro a week. “He’s fast,” Benedetta said. “He started Sept. 15 and was done Sept. 26.”

The mural depicts images that are representative of Glenrock, including oil and gas, sheep, the landmark rocks native to the town and the North Platte River.

The Welcome to Glenrock Mural project was a combination of several entities’ grants and support, including the Wyoming Arts Council with support from the National Endowment of the Arts and the Wyoming Legislature,, who contributed $3,875, the Wyoming Community Foundation who gave $5,000 and matching grants from the Town of Glenrock and Converse County Commissioners. All said and done the mural cost $14,500 to create.

“This is really our first big project and we’ve been really very excited about it,” Benedetta said.

The Glenrock Main Street organization is relatively new, operating for just about a year and five months.

“One of the reasons we did the mural is because we want to encourage people to come to town – come to Glenrock and see how fun and exciting we are and it is here,” she said.

Glenrock Main Street is hosting another community-minded, family-friendly event Oct. 14 at Town Square: The Cowboys vs. the Airforce football game.

“We’re organizing the town party football game. We’re going to show it on the big screen at 5 p.m. and have a big tailgate party there beforehand, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m., sponsored by UniWyo Credit Union. The Lions Club will be there. Vyve will be there,” she said.

See this week's Glenrock Independent for more photos of the new mural, with photos courtesy Candy Benedetta and Carla Genoff.