You could almost miss it in the shadow of El Cajon’s Civic Center; a museum that’s a time capsule into the old American West.
“It gives younger generations who weren't exposed to that part of history a little influence to preserve the Western heritage of this country,” said John Stauffer, chairman of the board of the Olaf Wieghorst Museum and Western Heritage Center on Rea Avenue in the city’s Arts & Entertainment District.
“The interesting thing about the United States of America, we have a rather recent frontier, which has gone by the wayside over the last 100 years because the frontier phased itself out,” said Stauffer.
But the frontier is very much alive here, through the eyes of Olaf Wieghorst. It comes to life through his paintings, which cover the museum’s walls. Horses are featured in most of his works.
“Olaf Wieghorst loved horses,” said Jim Daniels, who founded the museum in 1999 in what was a Goodwill store.
Wieghorst was born just about as far away from the western United States as you can get; a boy from Denmark who made his way on an ocean liner to the U.S.
Daniels knows the story well.
“When the ship docked, he jumped ship and got off in New York. A teenager, a couple of dollars in his pocket. Didn’t speak English, didn’t know anybody,” he said.
Wieghorst ended up in the U.S. Cavalry. In those days, if you stayed in the Cavalry for three years, you automatically became a U.S. citizen.
After that, he worked as a cowboy in Texas, and eventually made his way west. He ended up in El Cajon in 1945 and honed his skills as an artist, specializing in the American West. His love for horses shines through in his work.
“Since Olaf Wieghorst spent half his life in El Cajon, this is a perfect place for the museum to be. And being that the museum is located in the center of town, it is an ideal, I would say, jewel of what there is to see in El Cajon,” Stauffer said.
Something that really makes this museum stand out is the house Wieghorst and his wife lived in. It was moved years ago to the museum grounds.
“We didn’t have to change much inside the house. We had to do some code issues for safety. But the house is the way it was. It’s the way they lived,” Stauffer said.
You enter the house through the garage, through the kitchen and finally to the living room. On the north side, there’s a large window that brings in indirect, diffused sunlight — perfect for painting.
It became Wieghorst’s studio. On the wall under the window, there's something unintentional — and very special.
“You can see little flecks of paint on the wall where he would flick his brush,” Stauffer said.
His paintings appeared in a couple of John Wayne movies, and so did he — with bit parts in films like 1967’s El Dorado.
Stauffer said Wayne was a frequent visitor to the little El Cajon house. He and Wieghorst were good friends, and Stauffer said they liked to drink whisky together!
Situated between the house and the museum, there is a perfect place to pause and think about the western part of this country. It is a botanical garden filled with plants that are native to the region.
That’s where you’re likely to find Mike Bostwick.
“I originally started as a volunteer with the garden,” Bostwick said.
He is now the curator of the garden and he has the kind of experience you want in that role; he retired several years ago as curator of horticulture at the San Diego Zoo.
He said this garden had about 650 plant species in the ground when he took over. It now has about 1,000.
“It really shows the botanical world that we live in. It’s pretty spectacular,” Bostwick said proudly.
From the house where you can see how Olaf Wieghorst lived, to the beautiful botanical garden with its southwest desert vibe, to the museum itself, full of the works produced by a man now considered to be among the finest western artists ever; the Olaf Wieghorst Museum is worth a trip to El Cajon to take a journey into the history of the American West.
