The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, with more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The facility also has the world's most extensive collection of American rodeo

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

barbed wire A close-up view of a barbed wire Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire Barbed wire, also known as barb wire, is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the strands. Its primary use is t ...

, saddlery, and early rodeo trophies. Museum collections focus on preserving and interpreting the heritage of the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

. The museum becomes an

art gallery An art gallery is a room or a building in which visual art is displayed. In Western cultures from the mid-15th century, a gallery was any long, narrow covered passage along a wall, first used in the sense of a place for art in the 1590s. The lon ...

during the annual Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition and Sale each June. The Prix de West Artists sell original works of art as a fund raiser for the museum. The expansion and renovation was designed by Curtis W. Fentress, FAIA, RIBA of Fentress Architects.

History

The museum was established in 1955 as the Cowboy Hall of Fame and Museum, from an idea proposed by Chester A. Reynolds, to honor the cowboy and his era. Later that same year, the name was changed to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Museum. In 1960, the name was changed again to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center. The American Alliance of Museums gave the museum full accreditation in 2000, when it took on its present name. To maintain the memory of the founder, the museum grants the Chester A. Reynolds Memorial Award. This prize is granted to a person or institution contributing to the preservation of American West history and heritage.

Exhibits

The museum encompasses more than of display space. The museum's collection includes over 2,000 works of western art, the "William S. and Ann Atherton Art of the American West Gallery". The exhibit space contains

landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

s, portraits, colorful

still life A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly wikt:inanimate, inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or artificiality, m ...

s, and sculptures by 19th- and 20th-century artists. Its over 200 works by Charles Marion Russell, Frederic Remington, Albert Bierstadt, Solon Borglum, Thurmond Restuettenhall, Robert Lougheed, Charles Schreyvogel, and other early artists lead to the museum's prize collection of contemporary Western art created over the last 30 years by award-winning Prix de West artists. The first winner was a large oil by Clark Hulings, "Grand Canyon - Kaibob Trail", about a mule team barely crossing a Grand Canyon trail in deep winter snow. The collection also includes over 700 pieces by Edward S. Curtis, and over 350 from Joe De Yong, along with the large plaster sculpture of James Earle Fraser's ''End of the Trail''. The Hunters' Supper

The historical galleries include the American Cowboy Gallery, a look at the life and traditions of a working cowboy and ranching history; the American Rodeo Gallery, fashioned after a 1950s rodeo arena, provides a look at America's native sport; the Joe Grandee Museum of the Frontier West Gallery exhibits some of the more than 4,500 artifacts once belonging to Western

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

Joe Grandee; the Native American Gallery, focuses on the embellishments that Western tribes made to their everyday objects to reflect their beliefs and histories; the Weitzenhoffer Gallery of Fine American Firearms houses over 100 examples of firearms, by Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, Sharps,

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

, Marlin, and Parker Brothers. The museum also houses Prosperity Junction, a authentic turn-of-the-century Western prairie town. Visitors can stroll the streets, peek in some of the store windows, listen to antique player pianos, and actually walk into some of the fully furnished buildings. The town comes alive with historical figures once a year during the museum's annual holiday open house, "A Night Before Christmas". The museum also is home to an interactive children's museum titled Liichokoshkomo’. Making its debut to the museum in 2020, this outdoor space, meaning “let’s play”, encompasses more than 100,000 square feet and offers hands-on learning through purposeful play and engaging activities, such as dodging a geyser, grinding corn, and loading a pioneer wagon. In September 2022, it was announced that the museum's American Rodeo Gallery would house the Professional Bull Riders Hall of Fame; opening in Spring 2023 and to be completed by 2024 or 2025.

Western Heritage Awards

Every year, the museum gives "The Wrangler", an original

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sculpture by artist John Free, annually during the Western Heritage Awards to principal creators of the winning entries in specified categories of

Western literature Western literature, also known as European literature, is the literature written in the context of Western culture in the languages of Europe, as well as several geographically or historically related languages such as Basque and Hungarian, an ...

, music,

film A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

, and television. Past winners have included Owen Wister, William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson,

Ken Maynard Kenneth Olin Maynard (July 21, 1895 – March 23, 1973) was an American actor and producer. He was mostly active from the 1920s to the 1940s and considered one of the biggest Western stars in Hollywood. Maynard was also an occasional screenwrit ...

, Tim McCoy, Harry Carey, Roy Rogers,

Gene Autry Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998), nicknamed the Singing Cowboy, was an American singer, songwriter, actor, musician, rodeo performer, and baseball owner who gained fame largely by singing in a crooning s ...

, Tex Ritter, Rex Allen,

John Wayne Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Gol ...

Randolph Scott George Randolph Scott (January 23, 1898 – March 2, 1987) was an American film actor whose career spanned the years from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in a variety of ...

, Joel McCrea, Richard Widmark,

James Stewart James Maitland Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was an American actor and military pilot. Known for his distinctive drawl and everyman screen persona, Stewart's film career spanned 80 films from 1935 to 1991. With the strong morality h ...

, Buck Taylor,

Howard R. Lamar Howard Roberts Lamar (born November 18, 1923) is an American historian of the Western United States, American West. In addition to being Sterling Professor, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University since 1994, he served as List o ...

, Ben Johnson, Pernell Roberts, Arthur Allan Seidelman, Skeet Ulrich and Tom Selleck. The Rodeo Hall of Fame recipients are not honored during the Western Heritage Awards. They celebrate at another event and inductees receive medallions instead of "The Wrangler". In 1974, the western painter Arthur Roy Mitchell of Trinidad, Colorado received a special award, the "Honorary Trustee Award", having been cited as "the man who has done the most for southwestern history" through his collective art. In 1975, the gelding horse Steamboat was inducted into the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Along with Clayton Danks, the rider, Steamboat is the model of the Wyoming state trademark,

Bucking Horse and Rider The Bucking Horse and Rider (BH&R) is a registered trademark of the U.S. state of Wyoming. In 1936, Wyoming trademarked the image for the state's license plates. However, the state's usage of the logo can be traced back to as early as 1918. Wyomi ...

Rodeo Halls of Fame

Rodeo Historical Society (RHS) awards the Hall of Fame awards, which are determined through voting by the society membership. The museum includes three halls of fame, including the Hall of Great Westerners for actual people who lived through the frontier era to present. Other halls include the

Hall of Great Western Performers The Hall of Great Western Performers is a Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It is located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and sometimes referred to as the "Western Performers Hall of Fame". It is a presentation that explo ...

, for actors only, and the Rodeo Hall of Fame. These are a few of the members of the Rodeo Hall of Fame, followed by the year they were inducted:

Donald C. and Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center

The Donald C. and Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center (originally known as the Research Library of Western Americana) opened on June 26, 1965. Today, the center serves as the library and archives of the museum. The center is a closed-stacks library, containing books, photographs, oral histories, and manuscripts focusing on western popular culture, western art, ranching, Native Americans, and rodeo."National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum"
2010. Donald C. and Elizabeth M. Dickinson Research Center.

References

External links

Museum website
{{Coord, 35, 32, 08, N, 97, 28, 59, W, format=dms, display=title, type:landmark_region:US-OK Museums established in 1955 1955 establishments in Oklahoma Cowboy halls of fame

Cowboy A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the '' vaquer ...

Museums in Oklahoma City American West museums in Oklahoma Native Americans in Oklahoma City Art museums and galleries in Oklahoma Open-air museums in Oklahoma Native American arts organizations Culture of the Western United States Rodeo in the United States