Crystal Wilson spends hours each weekend working on the mural on Forest Lane, which spans 2,000 feet.
MURAL MURAL ON THE WALL A Forest Lane landmark since 1976
Story by RENEE UMSTED | Photography by CORRIE AUNE
IN THE 1960S, the road to cruise down was Forest Lane. Hundreds of people would show up on Friday and Saturday nights to drive the strip, which was separated from a residential neighborhood by a graffiti-plastered brick wall. W.T. White High School art teacher Mary Beth Neale wanted to do something about it. She went to the City and was granted the proper permits to paint a mural on the wall. Senior art students from W.T. White’s
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class of 1976 drew the original graphics that would be painted, among them a sun, an eagle and a car. The drawings were enlarged, projected onto the wall and traced, and the art students told volunteers which colors to use. Phillips rode the bus from W.T. White to the wall every day after school to help paint, along with about 30 other people. “We had the best time of our life doing something that has been a wonderful exhibit of our time,” she says.
APRIL 2022
It took be tween three and four months to finish the 2,000-foot mural, and after nearly 50 years, the paintings can still be seen. But it hasn’t come without countless hours of restoration. The first major work came in the ’90s, when one woman spent years painting the entire mural to bring vibrancy back to the faded colors. Then in 2011, a car crashed into the wall and left a dent, and someone painted the word “goof ” over it.
