Gene Autry Western Museum Gets Off to a Rip-Roaring Start

The cowboys on horseback stood waiting, the crowd was about to applaud and the former cowboy star, despite his faltering steps, had made his way to the microphone.

But the grand opening of Gene Autry’s Western Heritage Museum Tuesday did not go as smoothly as one of the Singing Cowboy’s westerns. The hired cowpokes, for one thing, made their pistol-shooting entrance right in the middle of Autry’s welcoming speech.

“Without my wife, Jackie, it might not have been possible for me to carry on,” the frail 81-year-old was saying as three cowboys galloped up to the $54-million, 140,000-square-foot museum that traces the heritage of the West, the museum that Autry has called his dream.

“Too soon!” Joanne Hale, museum executive director, yelled as the sound of fake gunfire obliterated Autry’s soft voice.

But it was too late. “Seems the lone rangers are here before we got started,” drawled Autry, who retains his down home, good-natured movie persona more than 30 years after playing his last cowboy role. Autry has since become a real estate and entertainment tycoon and owner of the California Angels baseball team.

“Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, have a big time,” he said. With Mayor Tom Bradley and Councilman John Ferraro beside him, he then performed the “ribbon-cutting” on a lariat rope, with a specially made “Bowie” knife.

Dressed in a cowboy-cut brown suit, beige cowboy hat, leather boots and carrying a cane, Autry stood outside the three-level rose-beige building located on 13 acres in Griffith Park, next to the Los Angeles Zoo.

Designed as a contemporary adaptation of Spanish mission and early western architecture, the windowless building’s most prominent feature is a bell tower overlooking a large outdoor plaza.

The museum, holding more than 16,000 items, traces the heritage of the West. Exhibits in seven permanent galleries show how the frontier was settled and how it was portrayed by artists, writers and Hollywood film makers. In the motion picture section, visitors press buttons next to television screens to see film clips taken from old westerns.

The collection includes items such as Teddy Roosevelt’s Colt revolver, Buffalo Bill Cody’s saddle and Annie Oakley’s gold-plated Smith and Wesson guns.

The museum took about four years to organize, according to spokesmen, overcoming controversy over its location. Although originally planned for Burbank’s Buena Vista Park, it met with strong opposition from environmentalists and neighbors. The Autrys then looked to the Griffith Park site.

But this location also was opposed by some city parks officials and the Sierra Club, which protested the loss of scarce flat urban parkland. In 1986, the City Council nevertheless voted to approve a 50-year lease, charging the museum $1 a year.

On Tuesday, Autry thanked “Mayor Tom” and Ferraro, whose council district includes the area, saying, “Without their help this museum might not have been located where it is now.”

The formal ceremony over, Autry walked to a large bronze statue of himself and his horse, Champion, in the plaza. His wife held his arm, as if to steady him.

Autry posed for pictures and said little, except to joke to Bradley that “I gave my wife the (Bowie) knife and now I’ll have to sleep with my eyes open.”

Although Jackie Autry did not speak at the opening ceremony, standing mostly on the sidelines, she is said to be the driving force behind the museum. Most of the funds for its construction came from a charitable trust she administers that had been created after the death in 1980 of Autry’s first wife. The cowboy star married Jackie Autry in 1981.

Nearby, 1940s cowboy star Monte Hale, Autry’s longtime friend, gave interviews, looking like a museum exhibit himself. He wore diamond-encrusted gold coins around his neck, a large silver belt buckle at his waist and an antique Patek Philippe watch on his wrist, with “Gene Autry” stamped in gold on each side of the band.

“This is a $20 gold piece,” Hale said, fingering one of the coins. “You can pick one of these up for about $14,000. This is just a small part of my collection.”

Opening rounds up the best of the West. Story in View.