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Cowboy Country Museum in Stamford: Preserving & Celebrating History

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Tony Maples Photography

 

The Texas Cowboy Country Museum can be found in a place called Stamford. For those who require a point of reference, it’s approximately 200 miles west of Dallas. The facility was originally opened in 1977 as a fine western art museum. Since Jewellee Kuenstler was hired as curator, she and Luci Wedeking (the Museum Director) have been on a mission to continue making that dream a reality.

According to a report by the Abilene Reporter-News, the museum successfully attracts kids. You read that right. Texas youth are enthused about what’s inside this museum. Its aura, its sense of bravado, and the story that it holds of Texas western lore appeals to them. For Wedeking, that’s a sign of success. “For high school students to come into another education institution and just hang out because it was cool,” she told nbcdfw.com, has been the true tell that we’ve been doing something right here.”

Cowboy Country Museum in Stamford: Preserving & Celebrating History

Photo: Facebook/Cowboy Country Museum

In the midst of the abundance of donations the Cowboy Country Museum receives, a treasure of sorts has appeared. “We discovered a couple of years ago that we had an original Tom Ryan piece that had been hanging-out on the floor,” Wedeking explained to nbcdfw.com. Until someone takes the time to sort through and effectively coordinate their collection, items such as this may otherwise go unnoticed. The painting is known as “Sundown,” and at present, it’s found a place of honor close to the front of the museum. Ryan passed away in 2011. He was best known for paintings he completed featuring the 6666 Ranch in Guthrie, Texas, and had been one of the museum’s founders. This work of art, together with another piece by renowned watercolorist Avery Johnson (whose work is also featured in the Smithsonian), make up a small part of the art on display at the museum. They were the impetus for Wedeking and Kuenstler’s mission to sort through the donations and research the pieces. “These were treasures we didn’t know we had, until we started researching them,” Wedeking said.

Cowboy Country Museum in Stamford: Preserving & Celebrating History

Photo: Facebook/Cowboy Country Museum

Among the collection is what’s now considered the centerpiece. Located in the main gallery of the Cowboy Country Museum is a chuck wagon that was used at the SMS Flat-Top Ranch. The staff has authenticated it through pictures showing its use from approximately a century ago. It’s an artifact from the days when Stamford first came to be, and the type of activity that would have first generated its establishment. This is the exact kind of model/display that the museum intends to portray – what life would have been like in Texas in the late 19th century. The exhibit will soon be part of a full cowboy camp display, giving visitors a true feeling of stepping back in time.

Cowboy Country Museum in Stamford: Preserving & Celebrating History

Photo: Facebook/Cowboy Country Museum

The museum also includes another side of Stamford – school and family history. Its west wall honors the Stamford High School Bulldogs. Its digitized Stamford newspapers (made possible through the University of North Texas, Stamford Carnegie Library sponsorship, and a Tocker Foundation grant) hold the information on the various folks who attended schools in and around Stamford prior to school integration. Making a gesture toward a collection of photographs and binders, Kuenstler noted, “Those are rural schools, some of those closed when they consolidated with Stamford.” As part of the project, every Friday, a group of 17 Stamford High School students visit the museum, read through the old articles, and make note of the names they come across. These are then added to an index the museum is keeping, whereby family and friends can research genealogy in Stamford. Seeing the students help in such a way has been integral to a ”renaissance” in the town, according to Wedeking. She told nbcdfw.com that many townspeople have commented on how wonderful it is to be in the town square on a morning when a high-school football player can be witnessed sweeping up in front of the museum, doing his part to help preserve a bit of Texas history.