We must keep the Western heritage. It is a big part of me.”

Carey Sigler

IF YOU GO

What: Sigler Western Museum

Where: 21 N. Frontier St., Wickenburg

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday; 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday

More Information: westernmuseum.org

Wickenburg’s Desert Caballeros Western Museum has received a $20 million donation, one of the largest gifts ever to an arts and cultural organization in Arizona’s history.

The museum, located about 40 minutes northwest of Surprise and Sun City West, is home to a renowned collection of Western art and history, and was founded in 1960 as a private nonprofit by Morton Bodfish, Roy Coxwell, H. K. “Mac” MacLennan, Katherine McCrady, and William Weeks.

The museum will be renamed the Sigler Western Museum after Carey and Jack Sigler, a Wickenburg couple, who are making the donation.

With the Sigler gift plus an additional $9.25 million in recent donations from many donors, the museum is breaking ground soon on a new art museum and pavilion across the street from its existing building, according to the museum.

The new $30 million facility will span 27,100 square feet with gallery spaces, an indoor pavilion, and an outdoor courtyard, adding to the museum’s existing main building and the existing 4,674-square-foot Cultural Crossroads Learning Center.

In 1975, the museum had 140 pieces in its permanent fine art collection. Today it has more than 600 pieces.

“Our museum has spectacular art, and we want to be able to showcase it to all of Arizona and the United States,” Daniel Finley, the Sigler Western Museum’s executive director, shared in a press release. “Through the generosity of Carey and Jack Sigler, our dreams will soon be realized.”

The 55-year-old museum, located in Wickenburg’s historic district, draws about 40,000 visitors a year from across the U.S. and abroad, the museum reports.

During the last 20 years, the museum has made a name for itself by spotlighting the nation’s best women artists in the Western genre with its “Cowgirl Up! Art from the Other Half of the West” annual exhibition and sale.

“Cowgirl Up!” has launched and accelerated the careers of more than 200 women artists since the inception of the exhibition. More than 175 pieces of art and 1,200 individual event and museum tickets were sold during the 2025 “Cowgirl Up!” opening weekend, generating $900,000 in revenue.

This year the museum earned “True West” magazine recognitions as the Best Western Museum Readers’ Choice and the #2 Top Art Museum of the West.

Expected to open late 2027, the new building is being designed by Studio Ma, an architecture firm based in Phoenix that also designed Scottsdale’s Museum of the West and renovations and additions to both the Heard Museum and Phoenix Art Museum.

Okland Construction of Tempe is the general contractor.

Local Ranching, Horsing Family

Carey and Jack Sigler grew up as close family friends on neighboring ranches in New Mexico. Carey herded cattle from an early age. As young adults, Jack and Carey married and moved to Arizona after Jack finished his service in the Army.

Jack served as the CEO of Russell Sigler Inc., a family-owned heating and air conditioning distributor, and Carey was a schoolteacher for 35 years. Their love of the western ranch life led them to Wickenburg, where they have lived for 20 years now.

Jack has been a long-time trustee for the museum.

“We must keep the Western heritage. It is a big part of me,” Carey Sigler said. “The museum is the foundation of Wickenburg.”

Visit westernmuseum.org.

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