Tag Archives: Firearms Collections

Cody, Wyoming

Posted on by kathousekelli70

In the late 1890's when William F. 'Buffalo Bill' Cody arrived in this area he fell in love with it, the river and the hot springs. He supported the progress for the town and its infrastructure.

Buffalo Bill was everything from a rancher, Pony Express rider, an Army soldier and scout, a scout for the railroads and Wild West Show Performer.

Best known for his Wild West Shows he performed in 48 of the lower States, in fact the only one he didn't perform in was Nevada.

He took his 500 strong group of Cowboys, cowgirls, Indians, work crew and theatre sets across the country side and even took them all on a ship to Europe performing for the Queen and other dignitaries.

 

Buffalo Bill built 3 hotels along the route from Cody to Yellowstone (it was already the nations first state park) offering rest stops for travellers. Would have been one hell of a trek out here in those days!

The Irma Hotel in Cody, so named after Buffalo Bill's youngest daughter was to be furnished with only the best of everything. It opened in November of 1902. Apparently the Irma Hotel rooms still provide steam heating and are decked out in antique furnishings, some still original to the hotel.

 

The Museum still has the silver ware and dishes from the hotel.

 

The Buffalo Bill Centre of the West Museum is a fantastic place to visit and yes preferably you will need a good full day if not two and your pass will get you two days anyway.


His life took many twists and turns and some of his ventures were not always profitable.

Married to Louisa Frederici, Bill and Louisa's first venture was running a hotel in Leavenworth, Kansas but he longed for the plains. He left Louisa for 9months. This was the start of many trips away from his wife and children. They had 4 children, Arta, Kit Carson, Orra Maude and Irma Louise. He was not present at any of their births!

Kit died at the age of 5 from scarlet fever and Orra would also die 8 years later at age 11. Along with financial strains this put further strains on his and Louisa's relationship. Arta, the eldest, married but later passed away in her early 40's. William and Louisa divorced in 1904.

This left Irma who spent several weeks with Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show in 1894. She would later travel with him at other times for the show. Annie Oakley had taken Irma under her wing, the cast referred to her (endearingly) as “Buffalo Bill's pet”.

Buffalo Bill was also an advocate for women's rights and he was convinced that they were equal to men. He had many women trick riders and sharpshooters including both Annie Oakley and Lillian Smith perform with his troop.

 

This is only a very very brief insight to Buffalo Bill, his relations with the Indians, various ventures – newspaper publishing, mining etc.

 

He died January 10, 1917 and is buried on Lookout Mountain West of Denver.

After this we had lunch at The Eatery within the museum, excellent choices, buffet, build your own sandwiches, wraps etc.

Then we went into the seemingly endless Firearms Museum. Holy moly! There is just about anything and everything, beautifully displayed, cut away's to see internal workings, gun tools, lathes, original engineering drawings etc!! There are some very interesting international firearm samples on display also.

 

So!

Pre dinner drinks at the Silver Dollar Saloon after a stroll down the street in our period costumes. We visited the Irma for the gun fight in the street, drinks and dinner. The original cherrywood bar is stunning!

We met some amazing people. First time Sturgis participants from the U.S. and New Zealand! Chatted with the shootout performers and enjoyed ourselves…….perhaps a little too much! 🙂

Good times!

Kat xo

http://centerofthewest.org

http://www.irmahotel.com

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cody,_Wyoming

 

 

Route 66, June 10

Posted on by kathousekelli70

Chandler

First stop, breakfast! At the Boom-a-rang Diner no less, looked like the local place to eat. A quaint little 50's decor diner and a retired National Guard gentleman in typical, wrangler jeans, cowboy hat and boots. Some very old looking buildings – rain prevented pictures.

Drove through Stroud, Bristow their main streets have some very old gorgeous buildings. Connected up to the I44 and onto Sapulpa.Bristow

Sapulpa

It also has some superb historic and restored shop fronts but we headed on through skirting round the outskirts of Tulsa – we will do the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame and Gilcrease Museum another weekend. (24 hours from Tulsaaaaa, one day away from your arrrms, I saw the welcoming light, and stopped to rest for the night…….Gene Pitney eat your heart out. Lol!) There is lots to see in Claremore so onward we go.

Pity we didn't stop to ask for directions to where the iconic Blue Whale is located in Catoosa! But the fudge shop may have been a little too tempting, sigh, onto Claremore we go.

Here's a pic from Museum in Claremore, this is what I was looking for!!

Claremore

Claremore is home to the J.M. Davis Arms & Historical Museum and the Will Rogers Memorial Museum.

We visited The J.M. Davis Arms Museum first. In 1946 Mr Davis' collection was already at 8,000 with fire arms collected over 52 years, the oldest at the time 500 years old and the smallest one only 1 1/2″ long.

The museum houses over 14,000 firearms and 50,000 artefacts that Mr Davis collected over many, many years and from many different countries. US, China, Germany, Belgium, Spain just to name a few.

I must say the gold and pearl hand guns really did take my fancy, Spanish!

Or what about trying to pull out a 10 1/2″ barrel length Ruger Blackhawk from your holster!

Numerous small pistols, like you wouldn't believe! I imagined trying to fit one in a corset or up under your bustle skirts – now that would be easily done with a pocket in your skirt as ladies often did.

Collections of saddles a couple of rows of these and the boot jacks! Many different styles of boot jacks both iron and timber.

You need at least 2 hours or more to visit this museum if you are an avid firearm enthusiast and more. It also houses other collections of J.M. Davis like knives, steins, musical instruments etc.

The final piece we had to see was the display with Annie Oakley's 410 shotgun and Teddy Roosevelts pistol with engraved Rough Rider picture of him on it.

Bonnie and Clyde? Or Gatsby? We've arrived at the Will Rogers Museum and found all the old cars that must be part of a rally and the two we saw previously! These are the ones we saw coming in over the bridge.

The car park was full of Model A Ford's! Excellent condition, some with white wall tyres, some with leather trunks on the back too. Just gorgeous.

Will Rogers and his “iPad”! He spent many hours with his typewriter on his lap ( as the gentleman at the front counter said, doing his “blog” for the newspaper – found a piece in the museum later that referenced this as well)

Fact – Will Rogers once visited South Africa, Australia and New Zealand as part of the Wirth Brothers Circus in 1902.

He was renowned for much more than his literary genius, he was a writer, radio announcer, public address speaker, roper and trick rider, movie maker, poet and humorist.

He lived a very full life, I don't know how he had time for family and movies with everything else he did.

Will Rogers died in a plane crash in Alaska, 15th August, 1935 with Wiley Post.

Stayed in Miami, Oklahoma for the night.

Kat xo