It was nice to be able and take a morning off today… no travel, just coffee and time to catch up on a bunch of blogs I have missed! Beautiful day here, as the sun was out, but only got up to about 68 deg. F.
Time to play tourist again, and if you picked up on the Header of the blog… we were off to John Wayne Country!
We decided to take in the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. Now if there is ever a place our friend John Morrison should come and visit, this would be it! He would stay here for a week!
Here is the Duke done in Bronze below… in celebration of his 100th birthday, they had this statue commissioned. John Wayne was a very strong supporter of this Museum, and in 1972, he donated all of his Cowboy type stuff to them!
This is the front entrance below, but it does not even show 15% of the entire complex… it is BIG!
This cast statue below welcomes you to the complex… it is called “The End of the Trail”, and it is also big!
Below is a complete corral, and you can see how realistic the displays were… this place if very well done!
Now, inside the museum, and gallery, you cannot us a flash, however I got this blurry picture of “The Sons of Pioneers” along with Roy Roger for Al, from the Bayfield Bunch! His favourite Cowboy singing group of all time!
There is a lot of incredible art work in this place, that I could not take pictures of, but a lot of good displays, like the one below…
They also built a complete western Town inside the Museum… you have to come and see this one!
President Regan also has a statue of himself in riding gear… there was a large segment of the museum set aside to the Big Screen Cowboys.
Here comes the Calvary… always the good guys!
There of course was a large collection of rifles and hand guns… incredible! These are only a few…
They have beautiful gardens with more displays set up outside… remember the opening display, of The End of the Trail… it is housed below…
Lookout… below is Wild Bill!
President Lincoln made it into the Complex… in the 1860 he signed into Law, the Homestead Act, which allowed about 1 Millions Families, to move out west and claim some farm land and settle. He also signed the Railway Act, which provided the right of ways for the Rail Road Companies to build the lines, that would open up the west!
Just another item to put on your bucket list, when visiting Oklahoma City! A great spot.
Got a good laugh today reading all the comments about the 72 oz. Steak offer on the highway signs… I could not imagine trying to eat it, but I am sure there are people that can and do it! Rick was wondering if the meal came with Desert!
Till tomorrow…
The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is one of our favorite museums. There is so much to see and so much history. I loved the gardens...gorgeous. Glad you had a wonderful day at the museum.
ReplyDeleteThis museum was so incredible. We could have spent days in it but of course just not enough time. The art work was gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip on the museum, we will have to put it on our list for our next trip thru there.
ReplyDeleteThat's a pretty good looking cowboy museum, thanks for the tour.
ReplyDeleteNice tour. I always enjoyed John Wayne movies. We'll have to add that museum to the travel bucket list.
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