National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is an interesting location, celebrating a unique era and time of the Old West. It’s one of the best and most famous places to visit in Oklahoma, especially for those who love the aesthetic, history, or culture of the days and places where cowboys roamed the land! Why is the museum here? Well, the state played a significant role in some big events in cowboy history, especially during the 1889 Oklahoma Land Run, when thousands of homesteaders lined up surrounding Purcell, a frontier town, to lay claim to one of the thousands of 160-acre land plants across 1,887,796 acres of unoccupied land. The land was ceded by Native American tribes to the state government after the Civil War and was the remnants of the west’s most desirable land for real estate. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum opened in Persimmon Hill in 1955 and looks out over the many lands claimed during the Land Run, which was the first of five that would occur in the state over the next 16 years. The entrance of the museum boasts an impressive piece of Western art and one of the world’s most iconic: “End of the Trail”, a plaster-cast reaching 18 feet into the air, created by James Earle Frazer. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum houses multiple galleries of sculptures and paintings. The Art of the American West Gallery is probably one of the most loved, featuring works by Gerald Balcair, Albert Bierstadt, Charles M. Russel, and William R. Leigh among its 2,000. Then there’s the American Cowboy Gallery, which exhibits artifacts, clothing items, accessories, and more in glass cases, telling the tale of cowboy history. There are even dioramas up to full-scale of scenes from the West! Lastly, Prosperity Junction is a replica cattle town from the turn of the century. Though its beginnings were humble as little more than an American cowboy hall of fame, today the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum is one of the foremost collections of Western art and culture. If you’re an artist, you can use the museum’s galleries to sketch! Address: 1700 NE 63rd St, Oklahoma City, OK 73111, United States