McKenzie and the Chicago Store

This mural is gone — along with most (all?) of the other Chicago Store murals — thanks to construction that we showed on our September 30th post. We originally posted the mural photo, by Warren V, on November 23, 2008 — exactly four years ago. Here's more of the story.

The person in the mural was named McKenzie; I saw photos of her (including one of this mural, which I recognized right away) November 17th on a Día de los Muertos altar in Raices Taller 222 gallery. Her father was Mike Harrison; you can read about him in the Tucson Weekly article “The Mayor of Fourth Avenue.” I found an obituary of McKenzie Haggerty-Harrison on Tucson.com. As the mural says (in lettering just to the left of the Chicago Store sign), she lived from September 23, 1987 to September 7, 2004. McKenzie died tragically after an amazing life. For instance, the mural's background is a Mayan design because the lived with the Mayans in Guatemala.

(The stories that murals tell... if only they all came with a history page attached! We'll do our best to find the stories and post them here on the Tucson Murals Project.) If you have anything to share about McKenzie or this mural, please leave a comment below or send me email.