Cowboy Museum

I spent the early afternoon in the Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. A good museum should bring its subject matter to life, not merely display it as relics of a dead past, and this museum does that superbly. If nothing else, it made me want to ride a horse and start watching Westerns. The artwork was extraordinary. Some of the guns and saddles were exquisitely crafted. There was a whole mock town and a great exhibit on the cowboy lifestyle.

Manequin scenes:


Sculpture (The End of the Trail, on the defeat of the Natives; and a giant marble cougar):


Paintings (photography wasn't allowed for some of the paintings but I think these were ok):

"Don't smoke a pipe inside [the wagon] especially in the morning; spit on the leeward side of the coach.
If you have anything to take in a bottle, pass it around; a man who drinks by himself in such a case is lost to all human feeling.
Don't discuss politics or religion, nor point out places on the road where horrible murders have been committed , if delicate women are among the passengers."