[1] At the age of 23, Datus won the honor to paint the murals in the Arizona State Library for a WPA project.
He did have a one-man show at the O’Brien Galleries in Chicago for one week, November 26 – December 7, 1940, which included ten portraits and four cartoons for the Pageant of Arizona Progress mural.
By mid January 1941, Datus finished work on some sketches for a proposed mural for the Illinois Bell Building in Chicago and asked Mulford Winsor for a letter of recommendation.
In March 1941, Datus joined the Cook County, IL National Guard (he had told Mulford Winsor that he had a rather low draft number and felt that he would be called up soon).
Starting off as a private in the Army Field Artillery, by November, he was a corporal stationed at Camp Forrest, Tennessee.
Again he asked Mulford Winsor for a recommendation for admission to Officers’ Training School (it had become a standing joke between the two that that was the primary reason Datus would write after leaving Arizona).
While serving in the South Pacific though, Datus briefly managed to draw portraits on scraps of paper or tent canvas.
During this time, Datus did do some commercial work, a set of twelve pictures, which were used on gas station and grocery store calendars for at least two years.
On what is now the northeast corner of 30th Street and Clarendon, Datus established the Kachina School of Art and his home.
His largest mural, Foundations of Confidence, was installed in the lobby of the First National Bank main branch (411 N. Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ).
Apparently a gentleman from the Midland (TX) Savings and Loan Association saw this mural and commissioned Datus to do one for their new building.
That mural currently rests in the vault of the Arizona Museum of Natural History awaiting restoration as does the Kiva at Awatovi which formerly hung in the First Federal Savings building on 20th St. and Camelback.
Datus had a summer studio near Heber, AZ, called the Buckskin Acres and Art Community which also offered courses.
Following the Savings and Loan scandals in the late 1980s, some works were auctioned by Resolution Trust in the early 1990s which further complicates tracking them down.