This Week in the West

This Week in the West: Tex Ritter

Woodward Ritter had gone to the University of Texas to study the law. Yet here was, in his fourth year of college and his grades were a disaster. Ten law classes. Five F’s, three D’s and two C’s. 
All his time, including when he should have been studying, had been taken up by his time singing, crisscrossing the country as a performer and the president of the UT glee club.
But the law would never enter the picture. Performing took Woodard on the road more and more. Eventually, he moved to New York City and landed a part on Broadway, where his distinct baritone voice and Western accent earned him a nickname that stuck.
Woodard “Tex” Ritter became one of America’s most beloved cowboys and country singers and went on to start a show business dynasty. He died this week, January 2, 1974.

This Week in the West: Frederic Remington

On this week's episode of our podcast This Week in The West: He was born in New York and died in Connecticut, but perhaps no one defined America’s imagination about the West more than Frederic Remington.
 
Every day here at The Cowboy, we stroll past Remington’s remarkable works of art.
 
Along with Charles Russell and a handful of others, Remington helped create the archetypes of the West. It is a story we’re proud to steward, along with our collection of original Remington art.
 
Frederic Remington died this week, December 26, 1909.
 

This Week in the West: Sacagawea

We start with two men who were among the country’s most skilled explorers, personally hand-picked by Thomas Jefferson, to add an expansive new chapter to the story of the United States.
With them was a pregnant 16-year-old (but she could have been younger), accompanying a man who had purchased her to become his “wife” a few years earlier.
Ahead of them lay 5,000 miles of the unknown country. That was in 1804. The men were Lewis and Clark. The girl was Sacagawea, who is thought to have died on this week, December 20, 1812.

This Week in the West: Chester Reynolds

Chester Reynolds was the visionary mind behind the creation of The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum almost 70 years ago, but tragically never stepped foot in the building.Find out more about his story in the latest episode of our podcast "This Week in The West."Each week we tell the stories of the people who shaped the American West - and are still shaping it today! Find us on your favorite podcast app or click on the link in our bio to visit our website.Much obliged for listening!

This Week in the West: Harold Holden

Today, we celebrate one of Oklahoma’s greatest artists, Harold Holden, who died this week a year ago, on December 6, 2023.
 
He was called just “H” by his friends. A self-taught sculptor, he became the icon who created icons all across our fine state.
 
A Will Rogers sculpture at Will Rogers International Airport? It’s a Harold Holden. A Cowboy in Oklahoma City’s Stockyards City? Yes, that, too. The Broncho at the University of Central Oklahoma? The Bison at Oklahoma Baptist University? The Ranger at Northwestern Oklahoma University. Frank “Pistol Pete” Eaton at Oklahoma State University. All of the above.

This Week in the West: Yakima Canutt

He’d been in Hollywood since the silent pictures. He’d taken punches, fallen off horses, rolled down hills and gotten up each time. And in the summer of 1958, he was in Rome, standing behind a Roman chariot, preparing to shoot one of the greatest action sequences in movie history.
Yakima Canutt had come a long way from Colfax, Washington, where he was born this week November 29, 1895.
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This Week in the West: Larry Mahan

He was called "The Elvis of Rodeo."
He was Larry Mahan. 
We’ve got to admit something right off the bat here, folks. When we first looked at the biography of Larry Mahan, we thought, “Can we fit all of that into a podcast that we, believe it or not, try to keep to only seven to eight minutes ?”
But we’re sure Larry, one of the grittiest and greatest rodeo cowboys in history, wouldn’t want us just to give up.
So we’ll “cowboy up” and forge ahead to tell just some of the larger-than-life story of Larry Mahan, born this week, November 21, 1943.
 

This Week in The West: The Birth of Route 66

Why do we get a spike in visitors from Europe every summer at The Cowboy? And what does that have to do with John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath?
It all comes from Route 66, the legendary highway, born this week in 1926. 
This Week in The West is produced at The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. 
You can read scripts of past episodes on our blog: https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/blog/
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Can't wait to see you here at The Cowboy! 
 

This Week in the West: Will Rogers

We begin this week as any Oklahoman should, with one of the West’s greatest storytellers: William Penn Adair Rogers, known to the world as Will Rogers, born on this week, Nov. 4, 1879 in Oologah, Indian Territory.

This Week in The West podcast coming soon!

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma is launching a new podcast.
"This Week in West" will begin November 4, so subscribe today. 
Our Museum, known as The Cowboy, helps people become more interested in and better understand the enduring legacy of our American West.
Each week on this podcast, look back and share some of the most compelling stories of the people and events that shaped the West’s history, art, and culture.