Chester Reynolds was the visionary mind behind the creation of The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum almost 70 years ago, but tragically never stepped foot in the building.

Today, we celebrate one of Oklahoma’s greatest artists, Harold Holden, who died this week a year ago, on December 6, 2023.

He was called just “H” by his friends. A self-taught sculptor, he became the icon who created icons all across our fine state.

A Will Rogers sculpture at Will Rogers International Airport? It’s a Harold Holden. A Cowboy in Oklahoma City’s Stockyards City? Yes, that, too. The Broncho at the University of Central Oklahoma? The Bison at Oklahoma Baptist University? The Ranger at Northwestern Oklahoma University. Frank “Pistol Pete” Eaton at Oklahoma State University. All of the above.

He’d been in Hollywood since the silent pictures. He’d taken punches, fallen off horses, rolled down hills and gotten up each time. And in the summer of 1958, he was in Rome, standing behind a Roman chariot, preparing to shoot one of the greatest action sequences in movie history.

Yakima Canutt had come a long way from Colfax, Washington, where he was born this week November 29, 1895.

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He was called "The Elvis of Rodeo."

He was Larry Mahan. 

We’ve got to admit something right off the bat here, folks. When we first looked at the biography of Larry Mahan, we thought, “Can we fit all of that into a podcast that we, believe it or not, try to keep to only seven to eight minutes ?”

But we’re sure Larry, one of the grittiest and greatest rodeo cowboys in history, wouldn’t want us just to give up.

So we’ll “cowboy up” and forge ahead to tell just some of the larger-than-life story of Larry Mahan, born this week, November 21, 1943.

Why do we get a spike in visitors from Europe every summer at The Cowboy? And what does that have to do with John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath?

It all comes from Route 66, the legendary highway, born this week in 1926. 

This Week in The West is produced at The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. 

You can read scripts of past episodes on our blog: https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/blog/

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Can't wait to see you here at The Cowboy! 

We begin this week as any Oklahoman should, with one of the West’s greatest storytellers: William Penn Adair Rogers, known to the world as Will Rogers, born on this week, Nov. 4, 1879 in Oologah, Indian Territory.

The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma is launching a new podcast.

"This Week in West" will begin November 4, so subscribe today. 

Our Museum, known as The Cowboy, helps people become more interested in and better understand the enduring legacy of our American West.

Each week on this podcast, look back and share some of the most compelling stories of the people and events that shaped the West’s history, art, and culture.