Old Town Scottsdale's Art District: A Self-Guided Tour

Highlights

Inclusions

Itinerary

1. Old Town Scottsdale is one of America’s most concentrated art districts, also known as ”the West’s Most Western Town.” It is a frontier farming community that transformed itself into a sophisticated cultural destination while maintaining its distinctive Southwestern character.

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2. Starting in front of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, you’ll walk through the historical center, where Native American trading posts evolved into luxury galleries.

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3. You’ll weave through Main Street’s gallery corridor and Marshall Way’s boutique district. I’ll show you Scottsdale’s Old Adobe Mission and the Little Red Schoolhouse, one of its first buildings in the original Mexican-American barrio.

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4. Step inside Bischoff’s Gallery, housed in a 1952 bank building where the original vaults now protect valuable Navajo rug collections. And explore the site of Sarah Thomas’ 1897 general store – Scottsdale’s first female-owned business – now home to Bischoff’s Shades of the West trading post

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5. Visit King Galleries, recognized as one of the world’s top five destinations for authentic Pueblo Indian pottery

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6. Discover works by Andrew Wyeth, Andy Warhol, and Pablo Picasso at American Fine Art’s 12,000-square-foot showcase

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7. Browse Sissoko Tribal Art Gallery’s extraordinary collection of African artifacts assembled by a former Malian gold trader

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8. Experience Sugar Bowl’s ice cream parlor, immortalized in ”The Family Circus” comic strip

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9. Old Town Scottsdale is one of America’s most concentrated art districts, also known as ”the West’s Most Western Town.” On this walking tour, you’ll discover how a frontier farming community transformed into a sophisticated cultural destination while maintaining its distinctive Southwestern character.

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10. By the end of this two-hour tour, you’ll have explored how Scottsdale became the Southwest’s premier art destination, while still managing to preserve the cowboy culture that earned it legendary status.

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11. By the time the tour ends at the Scottsdale Public Library and Civic Center Library, you’ll have traced the complete evolution of this desert town through its art and architecture.

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Cancellation

Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the experience starts, for a full refund.

Reviews

Ratings come from 2 reviews collected by our booking partner. They are travellers' own words, in the order they were written — never reordered to flatter the experience.

Know before you go

How it compares in Scottsdale

• Its from-price is 96% below the median of the 170 experiences we list in Scottsdale.
• Its length is typical for the group.
• By number of reviews it ranks 90 of 170.
• The operator lists free cancellation on it.

About Scottsdale

Scottsdale is a desert city next to Phoenix, in Arizona's Sonoran Desert, with a Western-style old town, art galleries, resorts and mountain trails.

Scottsdale lies east of Phoenix in Arizona, among the saguaro cacti and rocky hills of the Sonoran Desert. Old Town is a district of Western-themed shops, galleries and restaurants, and the city calls itself the West's Most Western Town. Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home and desert school, is part of a World Heritage listing for his work.

Top-ranked sights in Scottsdale: Old Town Scottsdale, Pinnacle Peak Park.

See all 170 experiences in Scottsdale