The J.M. Davis Arms and Historical Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, marked its 50th year of operation last weekend.
During the ceremony Saturday, a time capsule was sealed so it can be opened during the museum’s 100th anniversary. Among these things it contains are 16 essays from Claremore Public School fourth-graders offering ideas of what Claremore will look like in 50 years.
The day also was marked with a Cherokee Nation exhibit unveiling by the Indian Women’s Pocahontas Club.
John Wooley, Larry Larkin and Wayne McCombs, authors of a new book about J.M. Davis, “The Jim Davis Museum” also autographed copies of their book.
Davis, the museum’s late founder, once owned the long-gone Mason Hotel along Route 66 in Claremore. The Tulsa World picks up the rest of the story:
Davis was Claremore’s longest-serving mayor, and after that he was a city councilman. The three-story hotel had the first elevator in town, first jukebox in town, and maybe the first television in town, McCombs said.
“I know people used to come and have coffee or dinner and then watch the TV,” he said.
Guns first were displayed in 1929 as kind of a gimmick, and as a way to make the place unique and to compete with a new five-story Will Rogers Hotel that was being built down the street. Davis also remodeled all the rooms to include bathrooms and “went crazy with electricity and put a radio in every room,” McCombs said.
Davis had 99 guns on display in the beginning, and the collection now is about 13,882. The theory is he may have traded a lot of steak dinners and overnight stays for guns, and traded for and outright purchased others.
Word got out and the collection exploded, “no pun intended,” McCombs said.
In addition, the museum, also along Route 66, contains about 1,200 beer steins, 19th-century music boxes, Native American artifacts, swords, knives, antiques, boot jacks, cattle brands, horns and trophy heads.
Here’s an eight-year-old video about the museum:
Davis died at age 78 in 1973. He and his wife are interred in the museum.
Though it’s remained a major tourist attraction in Claremore for decades, it’s not been without bumpy rides. Two years ago, it settled a 10-year breach-of-contract lawsuit with the state. An audit had found 125 guns, worth more than $1 million, went missing when the state was in charge of running the museum. The suit also accused the state of not maintaining the collection properly.
(Image of the J.M. Davis Arms and Historical Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, by David Casteel via Flickr)