National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
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The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is a museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, houses more than 28,000 Western and American Indian art works and artifacts. The more than 200,000-square-foot facility boasts the most extensive collection of American rodeo, photographs, barbed wire, saddlery, and early rodeo trophies in the world. The Museum collections focus on preserving and interpreting the heritage of the American West, including the hardships and rough life of taming and living in the western United States, and its effects on people living there.
Occasionally, the Museum becomes an art gallery, during an annual Prix de West Invitational Art Exhibition and Sale each year in June. The Prix de West Artists sell original works of art as a fundraiser for the Museum.
It 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 named was changed to the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Museum. In 1960 the name was changed aqain to the "National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center." The American Association of Museums gave the museum full accreditation in 2000, the year the museum 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 in the preservation of American West History and Heritage.
The museum encompasses more than 200,000 square feet 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". There is a 15,000-square-foot exhibit space which contains landscapes, portraits, colorful still lifes and sculptures by 19th and 20th-century artists. It includes over 200 works by Charles Marion Russell, Frederic Remington, Albert Bierstadt, Solon Borglum, 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 gallery also includes over 700 pieces by Edward S. Curtis, and over 350 from Joe DeYong (1894–1975).
The historical galleries include:
- American Cowboy Gallery, a look at the life and traditions of a working cowboy and ranching history.
- American Rodeo Gallery, fashioned after a 1950s rodeo arena, provides a fascinating look at America's indigenous sport.
- Joe Grandee Museum of the Frontier West Gallery, exhibits some of the more than 4,500 artifacts once belonging to Western illustrator Joe Grandee, including Native American, trappers, traders, trailblazers, military and sport hunting.
- Native American Gallery focuses on the embellishments that Western tribes made to their everyday objects to reflect their beliefs and histories.
- Weitzenhoffer Gallery of Fine American Firearms, which houses over a hundred examples of firearms, by Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson, Sharps, Winchester, Marlin, and Parker Brothers, used to tame the West.
The Museum also houses Prosperity Junction, a 14,000-square-foot authentic turn-of-the-century Western prairie town. Visitors can stroll the streets, peek in some of the store windows 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 gives the Wrangler, an impressive original bronze sculpture by artist John Free. It's awarded annually during the Western Heritage Awards to principal creators of the winning entries in specified categories of Western literature, music, film and television. They include from the early days: Owen Wister, William S. Hart, Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, Ken Maynard, Tim McCoy, Harry Carey, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, Rex Allen, John Wayne, Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Richard Widmark, James Stewart, Ben Johnson all the way up to Tom Selleck. A list of Wranglers recipients in all categories can be viewed on the museum's website.
The Rodeo Hall of Fame recipients are not honored during the Western Heritage Awards. They celebrate at another event and present medallions to their inductees, not Wranglers.
The Museum includes three Halls of Fame:
- The Hall of Great Westerners.
- The Hall of Great Western Performers (actors only), as well as the Chester A. Reynolds Award also receive Wranglers.
- The Rodeo Hall of Fame. (for example William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody...).
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