National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

(Tinker AFB, Oklahoma City, OK)  Hi 90 Lo 66 – The rain that was expected this weekend never materialized, so rather than stay in a hunker down in the rig like we were expecting to do, we decided to go see the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.


The museum is in a large, modern looking building on Persimmon Hill in the northeastern hills of Oklahoma City.


The lobby is large and very bright, with windows looking out onto a beautiful water garden.


And a huge statue of the famous Fredric Remington sculpture “End of the Trail.”


We thought we’d spend an hour, or maybe two wandering around a few exhibits. However, we were surprised by the size and scope of the place! It’s huge, with more than a dozen rooms and a total of 19 different exhibits. There are two galleries of Western and Native American art. Dee and I aren’t really “art lovers,” but we have to admit we really enjoyed looking at the beautiful paintings and sculptures, especially the western landscapes. Excuse the quality of some of these photos. We weren’t allowed to use flash, and the lighting was pretty dim to protect the exhibits. But you can click on them to make them larger.






We were fascinated by this life-sized painting. It doesn’t show in this photo, but it has an eerie 3-d effect. You’d swear this guy’s boot is really hanging out over the step. It’s an example of Trompe-l'oeile, which means "deceive the eye."


There was a room devoted to the history of cowboys and the cowboy way of life, with hundreds of items of clothing, saddles, and any type of “cowboy” stuff you can imagine.


One small section was all about the history of barbed wire and cattle brands.


Yep, I said barbed wire. All those vertical slide out drawers contain examples of barbed wire.


This room had 1,300 examples of the more than 8,000 different types of barbed wire the museum owns. Wow… who knew!

These old branding irons were neat.


Dee was thrilled with the Native American gallery, with all the colorful clothing and beadwork. She’s always had a love of Native American culture.




I enjoyed the section on Army life in the 1800’s, with all the uniforms, equipment, and weapons from that era.


The firearms gallery was awesome! There were examples of almost every handgun and long gun manufactured from the early 1800’s to about 1900. Sorry, the lighting was so dim it made it hard to get good pictures.


Here’s some close ups that came out a little better.




Prosperity Junction was a replica of a small town in the year 1900. It was set in the evening with gas lighting, so it was too dark to take many pictures inside.


Western Performers Gallery told the history of how cowboys have been depicted in movies, with a very comprehensive history of all the western movies and stars, including this whole section devoted to John Wayne. There were personal items and movie set pieces from many of John Wayne’s movies.


We noticed this movie poster… Hmmm, I wonder if it’s available on DVD?


We spent close to four hours and enjoyed every minute of it. We highly recommend the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. It’s a world class facility and worth the $12.50 admission ($9.75 for seniors).

Tomorrow will be our last day in Oklahoma City. We plan to stick around home and get ready to move on to the Dallas-Fort Worth area on Monday.