Anyone who drives down Highway 62 or Adobe Road in Twentynine Palms will see mural after mural. Some are old, some are new, but most importantly, they all paint a picture of the history of Twentynine Palms. It was March 25, 1995 when Honolulu-based Ron Croci, son of Yucca Valley residents Mike and Carmen Croci, unveiled the Oasis of Mara mural at the corner of National Park Drive and Highway 62. With the help of assistant Beau Coughlan, Croci worked on the mural for about two weeks. In this historical highlight, reporter Cassidy Taylor tells the story of the Oasis of Mara…
The scene is a 17- by 80-foot depiction of the earliest known events and life around the Oasis of Mara. The Oasis of Mara was first referred to in official government records in 1855 when a Colonel Henry Washington was sent to survey the area, where he found Native Americans living in huts near the spring along with twenty-nine palms growing around the oasis, which he unromantically called “cabbage palmettos.”
The oasis was first settled by the Serrano who called it Mara, meaning “the place of little springs and much grass.” Legend holds they came to the oasis because a medicine man told them it was a good place to live and that they would have many baby boys. The medicine man instructed them to plant a palm tree each time a boy was born and in the first year, the Serrano planted 29 palm trees at the oasis. The Chemehuevi settled at the oasis in 1867 and intermingled peacefully with the Serrano.
This water source became well-known to all who visited the area. Some came and went, while others stayed and became homesteaders and ranchers. The mural of the Oasis of Mara can still be appreciated to this day on the corner of National Park Drive and Highway 62.
