One of Cave Creek’s most interesting and inspiring characters was Alonzo (Lon) Megargee III, a famous artist and local celebrity who left his mark in the history books.
Megargee was born into a well-to-do Philadelphia family. His father, in his 50s when Lon was born, was mostly absent. The rare times they spent together were influential, exposing young Lon to art, cultural sites and fostering the boy’s independence.
“According to Lon, when he was 13, his father was killed in a lovers’ dispute in Cuba. With the death of his father, Lon boarded a train west to Arizona where relatives lived,” says Stephanie Bradley, a lead volunteer for the museum. “Like so many, he was entranced by the west and soon held various jobs on Arizona ranches.”
While Megargee watched over cattle, he sketched. A stint in Tonto Basin brought him into the Graham-Tewksbury feud, an Arizona version of the Hatfields and the McCoys. Close calls with the warring clans caused him to leave for New River, where, as an accomplished cowboy, he became a ranch foreman.
Soon, while in his early 20s, Lon bought his own place north of Camp Creek, which he dubbed “Rancho 51.” He was certain he was set for life but a ruinous drought struck and sent him in a different direction.
Megargee sold the ranch and headed for art school in California. In 1912, he returned to Arizona, just as statehood was granted. Confident in his artistic ability, he proposed to paint 15 murals for Governor Hunt to decorate the new state house. His proposal was accepted and in 1913, he completed the set at $250 a painting. Many of the murals now are housed at the Arizona Capitol Museum. Along the way, he met and married several women and designed and built several homes, including Casa Hermosa (now Hermosa Inn in Paradise Valley), which included a tunnel system, allegedly for paramours. He had no background in architecture but he had vision and a stick with which to draw plans on the ground for each home.
In the 1950s, Lon moved to Cave Creek with his new (and last) wife Hermine. He designed and built an adobe house off Spur Cross Road. He took advertising assignments, with his most popular being a series of posters for A-1 Brewery, an award-winning Arizona beer.
Cowboy’s Dream was the most popular in the series. The painting, which featured a cowboy sleeping on a cloud dreaming of a nude woman astride a horse, hung in nearly every bar in Arizona. Cowboy’s Dream won advertising awards and remains a popular collector’s item. Other A-1 Beer paintings done while the artist lived in Cave Creek were crafted using local residents as models.
Lon Megargee’s “Last Drop from His Stetson” became the logo for the Stetson Hat Company. Curiously, it was while he worked for an advertising company in New York that he created this now famous western painting. He continued his successful art career until his death in Sedona in 1960. His ashes were scattered on his old ranch, Rancho 51.
Oren Arnold, a friend of Megargee’s, wrote: “Once [Lon] thought he’d like to be an arty artist, complete with smock and beret. But there were two obstacles – his own nature and that of the Arizona Sonoran Desert.” (Desert Magazine, October 1943). The new exhibit will debut when the museum season opens on October 2, 2024.
The 54-year-old museum’s mission is to preserve the artifacts of the prehistory, history, culture and legacy of the Cave Creek Mining District and the Cave Creek/Carefree foothills area through education, research and interpretive exhibits. The Cave Creek Museum is located at 6140 E. Skyline Drive in Cave Creek, Ariz. Open October through May. The museum can be reached at 480.488.2764 or cavecreekmuseum.org
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Photos courtesy Cave Creek Museum
