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Ever wondered what stories Route 66 carries beyond historic diners and neon road trip signs?

Discover the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City—a historic road trip treasure overlooked by most travelers. Scott and Jenn explore authentic frontier artifacts, frontier military history, and the real stories behind the American West, plus insider tips for making this a must-stop on your next historic travels.

A living history experience you won't find on Route 66 guides.

📍 Google Maps to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum

🎥 Video version of this podcast

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Imagine looking out over the endless red dirt of the southern plains

in the 1930s as dark, suffocating clouds of dust swallow the sun.

Crops are ruined, livelihoods are shattered, and families pack everything

they own into jalopies to head west along a brand-new two-lane highway.

In 1939, author John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath, chronicling the

migration from Oklahoma to California and forever branding Highway 66 as the Mother

Road, a ribbon of asphalt carrying the desperate search for the American dream.

Long before that highway was paved, this land was shaped by Native nations,

homesteaders claiming plots in land runs, and rugged cowhands driving

cattle north across the open frontier.

The American West was defined by ambition, heartbreak, grit, and

the legends that captured the imagination of the entire world

Welcome to Talk with History.

One filmmaker, one historian, leading history-inspired world

travels for the curious, the history lovers, and the explorer in us all.

I am your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jenn.

Hello.

Today we are continuing our Route 66 journey as we pull off the

highway in Oklahoma City to explore the massive, world-class National

Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

This museum covers the full, complex tapestry of Western expansion from Lewis,

Clark, and Sacagawea to the poignant power of James Earl Frazier's monumental

1894 sculpture, The End of the Trail, depicting the exhaustion of American

Indians driven from their ancestral lands.

We're also exploring the rich history of the National Rodeo Hall of Fame,

viewing original artifacts from legends like Annie Oakley, including

her actual rifle, and honoring Oklahoma's favorite son, Will Rogers.

We'll also take you through their life-size Western town and take a look

at the Hollywood side of, of the West with iconic film memorabilia worn by

John Wayne himself in the classics like True Grit and Rooster Cogburn.

I'm Scott Bennie, so tip your hat, saddle up, and step inside.

We're discovering the legends of the West on Route 66.

All right, Jenn.

So we are making our way across Route 66.

We're getting close to the midpoint now.

Yep.

And this is our Route 66 series, so this was one that we had talked

about ahead of time, and we are still in Ok- Oklahoma for this.

Mm-hmm.

And so we're at the National Was it National Cowboy and

Western Heritage Museum?

Yeah, so we had g- left Joplin.

We just did, uh, Bonnie and Clyde.

Just did Bonnie and Clyde.

We did the little bit in Kansas, and w- we didn't make specific videos in these

locations, but when you see our long Route 66 video, we stop in these locations.

And Tulsa is where we stopped overnight.

That's right.

So we stopped in Tulsa overnight.

Mm-hmm.

So we'll talk a little bit about what we saw in Tulsa because, um- They-

Well, no, we talked about it last time.

Yeah, they had the big statues

and stuff.

They had the big statues, so we talked about that.

But first, what I wanna say is welcome to any new listeners.

We've been seeing some recent podcast growth, um, and so I'm seeing our

download numbers go up, and so I'm assuming we've got new listeners.

So for those who are new to the podcast, Talk With History, or Travel and History

for Road Trips, we, uh… Our mission is to help you get out and explore the

history in your own backyard as well as anywhere else around the world.

Mm-hmm.

So we'll talk a little bit about more about some of the things that we provide

our audience, like the History Drive app.

We'll talk about that a little bit later, and some of the other things

that we do as well as in the podcast show notes and stuff like that.

So welcome to any new listeners.

Now, this museum- Yeah … was way bigger and way better than I expected it to be.

It's 200,000 square feet.

It's huge.

It's huge.

It… So it's right and smack in the middle of Oklahoma, Ok- in

Oklahoma City, so in the capital.

So it opened in 1955.

Okay.

It name changed in 1960.

Um, 200,000 square feet, but what's really neat about this museum is they

have over 28,000 artifacts and artwork, uh, depicting the West, depicting

American Indians, depicting, uh, cowboys, military, and it's just amazing.

And even when you first walk in, there is a huge bronze.

Yeah, out, out front.

Out front, and this bronze is called-

It was really cool.

So i- if, again, if you're new to the podcast, I'll link to this

video where we're on location at the museum in the, in the show notes.

But the museum out front was this very, like, very different.

It wasn't your typical cowboy style, like with a lasso or a- sitting

on a horse or doing whatever.

But it was, it was much more artistic, but I was actually pretty impressed by it.

Yeah, they really do a good job of housing, like, a lot of

sculpture and- Yeah … bronze.

And the bronze out front is called Welcome Sundown, and it was created by

award-winning artist Hollis Williford, and it's neat because it kinda shows a

cowboy with his hand over his eyes, and he looks like he's exhausted from the day.

He's taking a saddle off the horse, and he looks like he's just ready to go to sleep.

And so it's really neat 'cause it's gonna be telling you this entire story

of the cowboy and the westerner, and Scott opened up with Route 66 because

if you read Grapes of Wrath, the family is leaving from Oklahoma, and that's

kind of- The Dust Bowl era of the 1930s.

Why are so many people migrating from Oklahoma to California is because

the agriculture jobs have gone away because they've really, like,

they've over, uh, farmed the area.

It's a drought.

They can't farm, so there's no jobs for people, and so they're moving west.

And so they're using Route 66 to do this.

And so there was a lot of Route 66 memorabilia- Yeah … inside

there, like old signs.

And, and right, right in the front, right in the front of the museum,

they embrace that whole story.

They actually have a picture of John Steinbeck talk about The Grapes of Wrath.

So they, they talk all about that, and that's kind of the opening of our video.

And also, this museum is right off of Route 66.

Mm-hmm.

So it's, I, I don't know if it's, like, just an exit off, but

it's- It's a easy, it's a, it's a, it makes sense to stop here-

Yeah … if you're doing the Route 66.

And it's great, it's a great stop with kids.

Yeah.

And we're gonna explain why, 'cause it's a real, it's a lot of interactive

stuff that you can do there.

And like I said, it's 2,000, 200,000 square feet.

Uh, established in 1955 as the Cowboy Hall of Fame Museum, and

then in 1960 the name was officially changed to the National Cowboy Hall

of Fame and Western Heritage Center.

Uh, and now it really is like a rodeo hall of fame as well.

So they kind of en- encompass all of it.

But what's really neat is you first walk in, and again, they're really embracing

the art and the stories of, of the West.

So you get End of Trail, and you get the big James Frazier

sculpture of the American Indian.

I mean, it's probably 20 feet high, maybe, maybe bigger.

It's beautiful.

It's white.

Yeah.

Uh, it was sculpted in 1894, and it really shows the wind at the back

of this American Indian and how he's

It's supposed to kind of give you this fluidity of being forced off of their

native land, and he has nowhere to go.

Yeah.

And he just looks really downtrodden and exhausted and, and so that is

the first thing you kind of see.

So know that they're gonna embrace this entire story there.

Yeah.

And if you wanna see what that looks like, again, I've got video of it.

Um, eventually we'll kind of get the video version of this podcast probably

onto Apple Podcast, but it's on YouTube.

So if you wanna, if you're watching the video version of this, I'm probably

cutting this B roll over right now.

If you're listening and you're curious to kind of see what this looks

like, the link to the video version will be in the podcast show notes.

But it's, it's doing a good job of telling Western expansion.

How does this look?

Oklahoma was really a part of the Louisiana Purchase, and Oklahoma

is this contentious area where the American Indians had their, uh,

reservations at, but that's also where they gave land grants to people.

So you're gonna get the cowboys, the homesteaders.

In 1830s, um, they're gonna force the American Indian tribes from their homes

to move east, and so it's becomes a real known American Indian territory.

But in, becomes the 46th state in 1907, and the reason it gets its

name Oklahoma, it's a Choctaw phrase and it translates to red people.

Ah, interesting.

The American Indian land, but it's gonna be homesteaded, and

it's going to be established, and the cowboys are gonna work it.

And so it's embracing this entire story, plus it's right along Route 66.

Yeah.

A- and it's really neat.

So once you walk in- Mm-hmm … you know, and the- and it's fun because

the docents are all walking around in cowboy boots and cowboy hats.

Yep.

Um, and so obviously they're, they're local to that area, but they're,

they're there to help you out.

They… You'll see the big statue that we talked about, End of Trail.

There's, like, a stagecoach if kids wanna climb inside of it, you

know, an old done-up stagecoach.

Looks like a Wells Fargo one.

Um, and you can go a couple different ways.

You can walk through, there's an art exhibit that we walked through, the art

exhibit, and I think I led off with the video, and there's some beautiful art in

there, Lewis and Clark and some- Oh, yes

Western paintings.

It was just gorgeous.

They have an

extensive collection of Frederic Remington.

Yeah.

So Remington is … We love Remington.

We own one of his sculptures.

Uh- We own Bronco Buster, the 1895 bronze.

It's also in the White House, and that sculpture had been in the White

House from Jimmy Carter all the way through Donald Trump's presidency.

Biden removed it, and Trump put it back in there.

So it's called Bronc- Bronco Buster, and it, it's just a depiction of

Remington of a man riding a bronco.

Yeah.

Uh, but he's done so much extensive artwork, and they have all of that there.

It's really beautiful to see.

A-

and I… So I knew Remington a little bit from his sculptures.

I didn't know he had done art, and so when I saw it there, it

kinda looked familiar, right?

'Cause it's got that same style.

Mm-hmm.

And I, and so I was naturally drawn to it, and then you pointed out,

like, "Oh, that's a Remington," right?

So I… It was really neat, and even people commented on the video, 'cause

I took some close-up shots of, like, this buffalo on the range and, you

know, these Native Americans, you know, kinda out in, in their element

and all these different, uh, paintings that were there, and I didn't even

get to cover a small portion of them.

Uh, but people commented like, "Oh, those are, those are beautiful."

Yes, and what's really cool for me is they had some artifacts of Annie Oakley.

That was cool.

So they had her, two of her rifles were there, plus they had some of

the coins that her husband would throw, and she would shoot them.

Oh, yeah.

They had some of those coins that had the bullet depiction in it.

Uh, and they had, of course, some photographs of her, but it was really

neat to see artifacts with her name on it, and that was really super cool for me.

But what I loved with the kids is they had saddles there, so

you could get on the saddles.

You could see what a side saddle felt like.

Uh, but they had a recreation of a Western town, like the main street.

And if you see the video, I said, "It feels like The Man Who Shot Liberty

Valance," 'cause you walk out there, and it's like the church at the end of

the town, the saloon, the livery, right?

Like, everything is kinda there.

Yeah, and so we walked through there, and it was pretty empty while we were there.

Uh, we were there kind of in the middle of the week on our road trip.

But if you go to the, the, their website, it actually looks like occasionally

they'll, like, serve food in this area.

It's wide enough for them to serve food or drinks or things like that, and they

had little areas you could walk off.

It wasn't just this, this street with the f- with the facades.

It was, you could walk into what looked like a Western bar or a

schoolroom or things like that.

So that was really cool.

And then we went outside.

So I wanna talk about this outside area, and then we're gonna talk about

the movie stars they honor there.

But if you had, if it wasn't as hot, because we love to

go- Oh … Route 66 in July.

It was so hot outside.

It was so hot outside.

But if it was good weather, they had depictions of housing of

different people in the West.

So they had adobes.

They had tipis.

They had, uh- A Western town facade.

Things that you could walk around and interact with, the

kids could play and climb.

That was really neat, and they had a huge bronze of Remington's Coming Through the

Rye, which is, like, four men on horseback with their guns in the air shooting.

That's cool.

Uh, this is a 1902 bronze that he made, but they had a huge depiction of it, so

you can kinda stand there among that.

They also had a statue of Annie Oakley- Yeah … that you could, like,

stand beside and take pictures with.

So it was a really great interactive for the kids if they wanna get outside and

touch things and play around and climb.

I thought it was really great.

Yeah.

A- and again, as I was poking around on their website after I was

making the video, was it looks like they'll do, um, concerts outside.

So I saw, you know, and this is right on their website, so they'll do concerts

with country music and fiddlers and all the stuff that they're doing there.

Um, and so if you think about it, i- in that area, it's pretty central

in that Midwest kind of not too far from Texas and Oklahoma and all this

kinda cowboy culture in that area.

So there's a lot that's done there at this museum.

Yeah, and, like, it, it says in its name, right?

It's the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.

Mm-hmm.

So they really are trying, uh, to tell the entire story of everybody

who was part of settling the West, but it also h- holds, uh, a big movie.

How is it depicted on screen?

I

think that was our favorite part,

you and I. We love that.

Oh.

So they have a ton of movie artifacts there, and they really embrace their story

of Oklahoma's, uh, number one son, right?

His, Oklahoma's favorite son, William Penn Adair Rogers, and not

to be confused with Roy Rogers.

So I, I confused Roy Ro- him, him with Roy Rogers all the time, uh, 'cause

I, growing up, uh, my parents had some VHS tapes of Roy Rogers movies.

And so I actually, when I was growing up, I watched some Roy Rogers.

So when I saw Will Rogers, I had to

You and I were talking, and, like, no, no, no, Will Rogers was, started

off as, like, the silent movie star-

Yes

… of that era.

And he dies in 1935, very young at 55 years old.

Now, people know Roy Rogers, Die Hard, things like that, right?

And he's the, he's the singing cowboy- He's

the singing cowboy, yep

… with the glittery shirts and stuff.

Yeah.

Right?

And this is during the heyday of cowboys on television, right?

Yeah.

And so a lot of boys grew up with Roy Rogers.

Will Rogers really sets the scene for that.

He's a Vaudeville actor, um, and he's a Native American

Vaudeville perpor- performer.

Uh, he's born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation- Oh, I didn't know that

um, and part of Oklahoma.

Oh, wow.

And then he becomes a entertainer, a humorist, and he travels, right?

'Cause he's Vaudeville.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

And he makes over 71 films, 50 of them are silent.

Um, and then h- they, you know, they're nationally known, so people

know Will Rogers, but he dies young.

He dies, uh, in a th- plane crash at 55 years old, and so he really sets the

tone for that- initial generation of moviegoers, but then it's Roy Rogers

who really jumps onto the screen.

And again, when people are watching, you know, High Noon and, and all of

these John Wayne, when you're watching the, the Western actors of the '50s and

'60s, that's their remember Roy Rogers.

But Will Rogers is Oklahoma's favorite son, and so they have

a whole area depicted to him with a lot of his artifacts.

Uh, but as you turn the corner, they ba- pretty much have, like,

a whole display to John Wayne.

Oh, yeah.

It's, it's huge, and so we spend at least a little chunk of the video on that

because they show a kind of, like, the, the s- the span of John Wayne's career.

They have a bunch of his memorabilia, which you'll talk

about, and some other things.

And it's right in the heart of this, this Hollywood history,

Western Hollywood history area.

And it's neat because, like Scott said, they're kinda going through, like, the

story of cowboys depicted on screen.

But then John Wayne has his whole display to himself.

So they have the eye patch when he played Rooster Cogburn in the second movie.

They have a outfit from The Searchers.

They have a bunch of his real weapons.

Yeah.

A bunch of the real guns he owned were donated to the museum, so you

can see them, and some of them are engraved with his name on them.

So it was neat to see a bunch of the weapons he received as gifts

or people gave to him or he used.

They were all there.

It was just super neat.

And then Maureen O'Hara is also honored there because of all

the movies they did together.

And then Jimmy Stewart, 'cause of course you're gonna get The Man Who

Shot Liberty Valance and Shenandoah.

And then it was neat for us, too, because, uh, if you remember, Scott's

great-grandfather was the prop master on, uh, every episode of Bonanza.

And, uh, so they had a bunch of the Bonanza stuff.

Michael Landon's, uh, pistol was there.

Yeah.

That was cool.

So it was neat to see all of that, especially how

we're connected to it there.

So it was, they're walking you through cowboys depicted on screen.

Yeah.

And they actually did have a Roy Rogers section.

I didn't show too much of it in the video, 'cause we didn't talk as much about that.

But they, so they've got all the way from Will Rogers, who kind of set the

scene for the cowboy actors, all the way up through John Wayne and Roy Rogers

and, uh, not, not too close to modern.

I didn't see too many modern kind of Western actors in there.

But it was super fun.

That was probably our favorite section.

We didn't get to make it over to the rodeo section.

I think that was being, uh… I think it was, like it was under

construction or something like that.

Yes.

Yeah.

So I think it was, it was

closed off.

We didn't make it to, like, the military rodeo.

But they have, it is the Rodeo Hall of Fame, and they consider s- themselves

the first Rodeo Hall of Fame.

And I grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Most people, if you f- follow the show, you know this.

We used to watch rodeo on TV.

Like, my mom, to pass the time, would watch rodeo on television.

And I remember Don Gay was the commentator.

He was, he had won eight, like, bull riding championships, P, uh,

PRG or whatever they call that.

Right.

Now it's PBA.

P- yeah.

He, he had won eight of them.

And so he was the commentator always talking about stuff.

And then I grew up working the rodeo at Cheyenne Frontier Days

where Lane Frost was killed in 1989.

Now, Lane Frost was, uh, inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame in 2008.

But if you know anything about Lane Frost, his best friend, Tuff Hedeman, uh, who,

he's the one that developed the vests that everyone wears now as a rodeo rider,

as a bull rider, so, like, you can't get gored like what happened to Lane Frost.

Uh, he, uh- Was, he's considered the second-best bull rider of all

time, Lane Frost's best friend.

And if you saw the movie with, uh, Luke Perry-

Yeah

… he's played by, uh, Stephen Baldwin plays him.

And Tuff Hedeman actually did the, his stunts for him.

Oh, wow.

So he did his own stunts for the man who's playing him- Oh, interesting

in, in the movie.

So that, we should- That's cool … we should talk about that movie sometime.

It's called 8 Seconds, 'cause that's how long you have to stay on the bull.

Right.

You have eight seconds to keep your one hand off the bull.

And so, uh, but it's the story of Lane Frost.

So there are people, if you know anything about rodeo, there are people

who are in the Rodeo Hall of Fame, and this area is depicted as the

first Rodeo Hall of Fame of all time.

So it is the National Rodeo Hall of Fame as well.

Yeah, it, it was really cool 'cause there's a ton of interactive

content, especially if you're bringing your kids there.

There's, I mean, uh, legitimately interactive, not just statues

that they can look at, but stuff that they can take pictures.

Like, you could stand in one spot, they would take your picture,

and they would put your picture on, in, like, a cowboy scene.

Mm-hmm.

And so, like, my, our kids loved that, so that was super fun.

Like, it was hard for me to get pictures of it because it was all kind

of screens and everything like that.

But inside, outside was really, really neat.

It's easy to get to coming off of Route 66.

Definitely worth it.

The docents were great.

The artwork was super cool.

You know, I'm bummed we didn't get to hit, like, the rodeo and the military

section, 'cause those were kind of, i… Those were closed off when we were there.

But, um, absolutely world-class museum and definitely worth seeing.

Worth the visit, and you're probably gonna need more than one.

Yeah.

And if you wanna g- visit these, right, if you're watching this, so we

ha- do have our History or Drive app.

And actually, as of recording, we just released a new feature for

the app, so you will get a, kind of a video or a fact of the day.

Um, and that's for anybody.

It, it's, that, that fact, that feature is free.

So any time you go to historyordrive.com, you're gonna get basically a free

video that takes you to a location.

So if you guys wanna check that out, that's historyordrive.com.

Yeah, and it was super cool.

Thank you, Oklahoma City.

It was great to visit.

What a great museum.

Our kids loved it.

A great stop around Route 66.

They embrace the story of Route 66.

They understand their place o- on it.

And, uh, if you're just looking for a way to get, you know, some

air conditioning like we were-

Yeah.

… it was a great place to stop.

Absolutely.

As you walk past the towering bronze sculptures and out the front doors

of the museum, you leave with a deeper appreciation of the complex,

layered history of the American West.

From the heartbreaking reality immortalized in The End of Trail to

the precision of Annie Oakley and the cinematic legends of John Wayne,

this museum honors the triumphs, the tragedies, and the resilience of the

people who shaped this landscape.

Oklahoma City isn't just a midway mark on Route 66.

It is the beating heart of the stories that define the Mother

Road and inspire generations to look toward the Western horizon.

Our Route 66 Centennial Road Trip keeps rolling west.

Make sure you subscribe to Talk With History so you don't miss out on

our next stop along the Mother Road.

We'll talk to you next time.

Thank you.

This has been a Walk With History production.

Talk With History is created and hosted by me, Scott Bennie.

Episode researched by Jennifer Bennie.

Check out the show notes for links and references mentioned in this episode.

Make sure you hit that follow button in that podcast player,

and we'll talk to you next time