As the sun set over McCoy Creek Trail Friday evening, two long-time Buchanan residents admired the way that the yellowing sun illuminated a piece of artwork they had spent the better part of four years creating.

“I think it turned out really well,” said Tracy Dippo, one of the two, about a large, oblong mural. “I really think people are going to like it.”

Dippo and local historian Peter Lysy recently completed a mural for the McCoy Creek Trail, which features the history of Buchanan and McCoy Creek. The mural, sitting at the opening of the McCoy Creek Trail at the intersection of Smith and Oak streets, will now greet visitors to the trail and give them a taste of local history.

In late 2013, Dippo was approached by the McCoy Creek Trail Board and asked to put a mural at the opening of the trail. The strange, oblong space she had to work with left Dippo puzzled as to what to put in the space.

Eventually, she teamed up with Lysy to make the mural about the history of McCoy Creek. The mural now features a map of the creek, including the trail and the street surrounding it. On either side of the map are several panels featuring text and photographs depicting the history of Buchanan and McCoy Creek.

“[The McCoy Creek Trail Board] knew they wanted something there, and I saw the shape [of the mural space] and wondered how the creek shape matches,” Dippo said. “I then spoke with Peter, our local historian and an archivist for Notre Dame University, and from there it just took off.”

The importance of McCoy Creek and the water mills that harnessed its power inspired the mural, both Dippo and Lysy said.

“In the early years, [mills] were the primary source of power,” Lysy said. “They brought industry here. It developed the community, the water power did. From there, the community took off and grew.”

Both Dippo and Lysy called the history of the McCoy Creek trail “fascinating” and “amazing.”

Lysy went on to explain that the history depicted in the mural explains why Buchanan sits where it currently does, rather than closer to the St. Joseph River like many other cities, such as Niles.

“[The mural] really shows how things have have consequences,” Lysy said. “Things that happened way back when affect where we are now.”

It is their shared love of history that made Dippo and Lysy dedicated to the mural project and got them through the many hours of work and changes that the project has gone through, they said.

“I’m really proud of what we’ve done here,” Dippo said. “To go back and look at the early emails [about the mural project] is so funny to think of what we thought it was going to be and then what it blossomed into. It’s really much better than I expected it to be, and I’m very happy with the amount of information that we were able to provide and the way it looks.”

Now that the project is complete, Dippo and Lysy hope that the public will enjoy the mural as much as they do and will take a moment to appreciate the history of McCoy Creek.

“I’d like people to understand the history of the Buchanan a little better and just to enjoy history as they look at the mural,” Lysy said. “There are a lot of names and dates [on the mural], but there are interesting things, too. History is fun.”