A new piece of art is coming to Granville’s streets, although it may look like an entrance into the past. A mural has materialized on the back of the Granville Historical Society’s Museum & Research Center throughout the last week of September, all thanks to the work of artist Danny Gamble and his dog, Bando.
Commissioned by the Historical Society in an effort to beautify its space, the 20-by-28-foot mural incorporates key moments in Granville’s history along with examples of products and industries that helped shape the village. Gamble, a Cincinnati native, said he hoped to finish it in early October.
“We came up with all the elements via the committee,” Gamble said about the design process behind the mural. “They gave me a history of the town, they walked me through the museum. We looked at different bits and pieces that could be included, and we wanted to hit all of the notes of the development from the ground up of the town.”
Members of the Granville Historical Society gave Gamble the history of the village, and together they came up with ideas about what elements to include. 
Members of the Granville Historical Society gave Gamble the history of the village, and together they came up with ideas about what elements to include. 
Gamble says he loves to work on large murals, and loves to include small details throughout the pieces. 
Gamble says he loves to work on large murals, and loves to include small details throughout the pieces. 
Each part of the mural represents something about Granville’s history, from the architecture to the industry. 
Danny Gamble and his dog, Bando, worked throughout the week to finish a mural highlighting Granville’s history. 
Gamble worked into the evenings throughout the last week of September.
He began work on the mural on Tuesday, Sept. 22, after driving up from Cincinnati with his dog Bando. Gamble said that Bando, who will be 3 years old next month, has come on as many jobs with him as he could since Gamble rescued the dog at 12 weeks old.
After getting into graffiti and sign-making in the late ’90s, he grew a career in large-scale art, such as scenic painting for theater and movie sets. In 2020, Gamble opened Wildstyle Signs – his own sign shop in Cincinnati – and said that this venture has allowed him to broaden his reach with his art.
“I have an artist-driven sign shop… we do anything you can do at Fastsigns or at a Signarama type of thing, but with no restrictions,” he said. “Not only painting murals, but printing them, if people don’t want to pay for the painting. Because a lot of times, you’ll be doing commercial art in a space, and you’ll hear the people discussing their signage needs. So it’s cool to be able to do both. Or if I get called on a signage job, to be able to say, well, we do murals, and then we do both.”
Gamble’s experience painting murals has taken him all over the country, but he’s no stranger to Licking County.
Last year, he found himself in Newark, collaborating with other artists on a mural started by artist Curtis Goldstein. Goldstein, who was behind many iconic murals in Newark, died suddenly in 2025 while completing a mural at the historic Newark Arcade, and Gamble was part of a team of painters and artists called in to finish his work.
This got him connected with a few local artists, who pointed him towards the Granville Historical Society earlier this year when they were looking for an artist to make their vision come to life.
Jack Schmidt, buildings and maintenance committee chair at the Historical Society, said he’s very happy with how the project has turned out so far. Schmidt is hoping that more can be done to brighten up the area between the Historical Society building, Seek-No-Further Cidery and Park National Bank.
“Some of us have got some ideas on the other side of the building,” he said. “The bank is considering some murals over there. We’re trying to call this now, the ‘Museum District.’”
Schmidt also said he was also proud of what the Historical Society has done over the years, and the support that he was able to garner for this project. However, despite funding from donors and patrons to the museum, the organization will need more financial assistance with this project.
“For an all-volunteer organization, we get a tremendous amount of work done, and historically, there’s been a lot of contributors to it,” Schmidt said. “That’s what energizes me, is knowing the people that have put into this organization for the last 150 years.”
The Historical Society’s Programs Committee Chair Nannette Maciejunes echoed a similar sentiment, crediting Schmidt with his role in getting the project off the ground.
“[Schmidt] had a great process. We all got together, we talked about what we wanted, and then we did a call for artists, and we talked to people about… recommendations,” Maciejunes said. “We all talked about and narrowed it down to three or four [artists], and then we brought in a few to talk.”
Gamble and his work stuck out to Maciejunes, and she said he felt like the right fit for their kind of organization.
“Danny’s used to, in his practice as an artist and with a small business, our kind of structure. We’re a small, nonprofit run primarily by volunteers,” Maciejunes said. “The other thing that really impressed us was that our original ideas and designs were all the ‘icons of Granville,’ the building icons and architectural icons– and it was Danny who said, ‘Have you thought about adding some objects?’”
When the mural is complete, Maciejunes said that they’ll have a QR code for visitors to scan for more information about each part of the design.
As for the mural’s progress, Gamble said that he’s been spending around 16 hours on site each day, painting, sketching and planning.
“I am good at doing those kind of effortful hours, but really, a lot of that’s downtime. Some of that time is waiting on cars or dealing with the dog barking at passersby or something,” he said. “So between dog walks, coffee drinks and waiting on the parking lots to clear out so I can do late night stuff, I might be out here for 16 but work 12 of them, you know?”
Even though he’s made signage his business, Gamble said projects like this mural are still his favorite – and his skill really shines when working with spray paint.
“I’m very happy about doing smaller-detail-illustration type of work, too. It is super cool and more unique, really these days, because so many people do spray-paint-driven murals,” he said. “Back in the day, I got in trouble for stuff like that. Nowadays, they call it street art, and if you’re cute, then people love you for it. But back in the day, you weren’t allowed to be cute for it, and now it’s very different. That actually contributed to my print shop thing, too, because sometimes with public art these days, it’s not necessarily what’s getting done. It’s who did it. And I’m more concerned about what gets done.”
Margo Ellis writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.