On a sunny mid-May afternoon, muralist Emmanuel Campos-Perez — who prefers to go by his artistic signature of Deber614 — was putting the final touches on a mural on a brick building at 25th North and Arkansas, where two brothers had once run a well-frequented corner store.
The mural of J.W. and B.E. “Beetle” Baum is the fifth mural in Deber614’s ambitious 15-mural “Gaze of History” project, which is a sort of open-air archive and tribute to Wichitans and other historical figures.
“That’s dad, isn’t it?” said Janiece Baum Dixon to her husband, Curtis, who had pulled into the parking lot to check out the progress. Dixon, the daughter of J.W. Baum, owns the building on the land where her dad and uncle once ran Sailors Sporting Goods, which was more of a convenience store than a sporting store, selling gas, beverages and penny candy. The original building burned down, and the brothers built the current one.
“A lot of the older people in the North End will likely remember it,” said Dixon about her family’s store. The brothers had been lifelong residents of the North End…