Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore to undergo a $14 million expansion and renovation

The Will Rogers Memorial Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, will undergo an extensive renovation and expansion in the next few years — the first since the museum opened in 1938.

The Joplin Globe reported:

Letters from Will Rogers’ adolescence, glass slides of movie posters, studio contracts, movie scripts and costumes are just a few of the 30,000 unseen items at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum that now have the chance to be on display.

The museum will receive $7 million in state funding to create a new entrance and a new event center, add a new vault up to modern preservation standards and make the museum Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant by adding elevators. The funding comes from legislation signed recently by Gov. Kevin Stitt that provides the Oklahoma Historical Society with $46 million to address needs at 23 historical sites.

The Will Rogers Memorial Museum Foundation will raise an additional $7 million to go toward renovating the museum, adding more than 4,000 square feet of exhibit space.

Jennifer Holt, the curator of collections, said only about 40% of the objects the museum has in its collection currently are on display — hence the need for an expansion.

New exhibits will include a poster collection from the 1920s and ‘30s, including movie posters from Rogers’ films.

The museum’s goal is to finish its renovations completed by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Route 66.

The museum often is a side trip for many Route 66 travelers, as it sits only a mile or so north of the Mother Road.

The witty Rogers, often cited as Oklahoma’s most famous son, was the No. 1 star in Hollywood, on radio and in newspapers at the time of his death during a plane crash in Alaska in 1935.

He was so popular, if he’d run for president, he probably would have won in a landslide. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of sites in Oklahoma bear his name.

Rogers touted U.S. 66, including at the Bunion Derby footrace in 1928. U.S. 66 began to be called the Will Rogers Highway during the 1940s. A well-known monument dedicating the Will Rogers Highway was installed in Santa Monica, California, near the Santa Monica Pier, in 1952.

(Hat tip to Brian Gregory; image of the Will Rogers Memorial Museum by J. Stephen Conn via Flickr)