Seventeen years is an embarrassing long time to have to admit I waited before discovering the Autry National Center (but many simply call it the Gene Autry Museum to this day), one of best museums in the country. Luckily, when my mother came to visit for the holidays in '08 I needed to find something she hadn't seen on one of her dozen odd other trips to see her eldest child.
The Autry is actually several museums and one is currently closed (Southwest Museum, devoted to the study of three Native American groups by geography, has seismic infrastructure issues). In addition to the permanent exhibits, the Autry also has a large hall that features an ongoing series of shows. The first time we went, Bold Caballeros Y Noble Bandidas was devoted to the art and pop culture involving the outlaw in Mexican culture some tie-ins with the Mexican Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos) festivities. When I returned with newly minted Angeleno Mary Orrell the next summer, there was a show devoted to the memorabilia collection country music icon Marty Stuart who seemed to have known and gotten knick knacks from every major country star from 50's - 70's. There was interactive section that resulted in the picture to the left.
But the two permanent halls that really held my interest were the expected traditional Western history (the original Museum of the American West founded by Gene Autry in 1988 which is divided into "Opportunity," "Conquest" and "Community") and the hall called "Imagination" which traces how the West was depicted in culture, which started almost from beginning. Even before there were movies, radio and TV shows, the folks back east were fascinated with West in plays, pulp books and some of the most outlandish furniture that hasn't been bought by Nic Cage.
As with all great institutions like this, what you really walk away with is new insights and knowledge. For one thing, for their time, stage coaches were actually rather luxurious and high tech. The better ones had glass windows, leather straps that acted as shock absorbers, dust covers for the luggage and even clockwork odometers to gauge distances traveled.
So, if you haven't, go.
Pictures: Top, armchair with bison horns; Middle, Gene Autry & Champion statue near entrance; Bottom, Doc Coppock before a show.
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