Saunders museum

[archieclement]

In Berryville Arkansas outside Eureka Springs, has extensive handgun collection. Saw pistols once owned by Quantrill, Frank and Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Bill Hickok, Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, Cole Younger among others, unfortunately they don't allow taking photographs.

Pretty extensive I thought collection of colt, remington, s&w, US Marshall guns, walkers, and derringers, had original bowie knives, had some longer and shotguns, but handguns is it's mainstay.

Had a scalp belt from Geronimo

 

[mofederal]

I've been to the area Archie, but I had never seen the museum. I have seen a lot of odd things in collections, and unexpected at that. It sounds like quite a collection. I remember the all wars museum in Branson they sold out and shipped to the 4 winds. It was quite a place, but they did not sell everything.

 

[archieclement]

Am always struck by how small of grips they seemed to prefer back then, I used to have a repro .36 colt navy, a lot of the originals had childlike grips in comparison

 

[BlueandGrayl]

Am always struck by how small of grips they seemed to prefer back then, I used to have a repro .36 colt navy, a lot of the originals had childlike grips in comparison

You know that there more Missourians who fought for the South just like Kentuckians than they did with the Union as shown with the Battle of Prarie's Grove. Missouri was a very important state in the Trans-Mississippi Theater just like Kentucky, the state had a bit more industrial capacity/railroads (20,000 factory workers lived there), population, and was near an important river as well as being home to St. Louis which in the Confederacy would be the second largest city next to New Orleans since both were founded by French colonists, were port cities, and large immigrant communities.

 

[bankerpapaw]

In Berryville Arkansas outside Eureka Springs, has extensive handgun collection. Saw pistols once owned by Quantrill, Frank and Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Bill Hickok, Bill Cody, Annie Oakley, Cole Younger among others, unfortunately they don't allow taking photographs.

Pretty extensive I thought collection of colt, remington, s&w, US Marshall guns, walkers, and derringers, had original bowie knives, had some longer and shotguns, but handguns is it's mainstay.

Had a scalp belt from Geronimo

Been there. Pretty impressive!!!

 

[Jimklag]

Here is a link to the museum website.

http://berryville.com/saunders-museum/

 

[archieclement]

Here is a link to the museum website.

http://berryville.com/saunders-museum/

they also had several boxed sets of dueling pistols

Only bout 30 some miles from Branson, 45 min drive or so, windy back Ozark roads, but would recommend for anyone staying in Branson with interest in CW and early era handguns

 

[James N.]

I finally got around to visiting there around a decade ago and was dismayed by the lack of believable information about many of the pieces. This was another "old-fashioned" museum built around the admittedly large collection of a non-discriminating local; no doubt he meant well, but the absence of research certainly showed. It was entertaining to look at and ponder for a while, but I wouldn't trust the provenance of any of the items displayed!

 

[James N.]

There's another similar but even larger gun museum across the Ark.-Okla. border in Claremore, Oklahoma. I unfortunately never saw the Davis Gun Museum in its heyday but heard about its origin. It seems that this Davis owned a local hotel and would take guns as payment for lodging, amassing what in essence was a building full of junk NAILED to all the walls! Of course "there was gold among the dross" and after he died the city acquired the hotel and all its furnishings and built a proper modern museum building to move them into, which was how I saw it back in the 90's or early 2000's.

 

[archieclement]

I finally got around to visiting there around a decade ago and was dismayed by the lack of believable information about many of the pieces. This was another "old-fashioned" museum built around the collection of a non-discriminating local; no doubt he meant well, but the absence of research certainly showed. It was entertaining to look at and ponder for a while, but I wouldn't trust the provenance of any of the items displayed!

I wondered the same of a couple pieces, but the provenance of any 150 years old piece is somewhat questionable to me unless you knew the original source personally...…

A certificate of authenticity just means at least one person was potentially bamboozled......

 

[James N.]

I wondered the same of a couple pieces, but the provenance of any 150 years old piece is somewhat questionable to me unless you knew the original source personally......

And I've mentioned here before the unsurprising tendency of Frank James in particular to buy up old guns that he could subsequently palm off on the unsuspecting and gullible as HIS GUN. (Which of course it WAS - but not in the way implied!)

 

[archieclement]

I agree unless it was a presentation piece where the s/n to owner was recorded, of which there's few....everyday guns it comes down to someones word or claim, which in most cases cant be readily verified

But hey I'd take a gun owned by Frank James, even if only for a couple week post outlaw years

Still be cooler then a colt navy never owned by him

 

[Ralph Heinz]

I visited Mr. Davis in 1962 and his hotel in Claremore, Okla. where the collection was on display. It was astonishing. Mr. Davis showed me hotel rooms he was then storing thousands of guns in. During the Great Depression he was buying up guns constantly and said he spent about $1,000 a month. I don't know what his source of wealth was but he definitely had the money to buy anything and everything that struck his interest including mounted Texas longhorns, old saddles, etc. He had converted his hotel into a place to store thousands of guns. They were not nailed to the walls -- they were hung like window blinds down the walls in chains (as I recall they were wrapped around the rifles so that two loops held each rifle and then more and more down the walls.) There would be a Henry rifle among a bunch of common percussion squirrel rifles. The upstairs floors had all the hallway walls covered with rifles. What had once been a huge dining room was completely full of things like a collection of steins. I got to see it all because I had asked him about M1874 Sharps buffalo rifles (I owned a couple and it was my major interest) so Mr. Davis opened up a couple rooms where there are a few Sharps among hundreds of other guns. He even offered to sell me a Sharps.

Davis had a few old timers living in the hotel but it really wasn't a place to stay in but rather a huge monument to his collection. Being somewhat critical about it -- there was no rime or reason to how things were displayed. Rare firearms were hung next to clunkers down the very high walls and display cases were so dusty and dirty you had trouble seeing some guns that had belonged to famous criminals.

Davis asked me how many guns I had and told me "You aren't a collector unless you have 100 guns or more." I had about 20 at the time as I was only a couple years out of high school and I was in Oklahoma for Jim Shoulders bull riding school.

After he died, the city built a museum but when I visited it I didn't see much of interest and it looked like they had simply emptied some of the hotel rooms of mainly muzzle loading percussion rifles and put a huge number on display in their museum. There were none of the 1874 Sharps rifles I had seen in the hotel and its rooms and I was very disappointed in it.

I surmise that during those dust bowl years every poor Okie who had an old gun to sell traveled to Claremore to get a few dollars for it from Mr. Davis. Years earlier Guns Magazine had done a feature article on Mr. Davis which is how I found out about it and planned my visit to see it when I knew I'd be in Oklahoma.

 

[Zella]

You were in my neck of the woods!

I went to this museum as a kid but don't remember much about it. Should pay it another visit. Actually kind of surprised so many people on here are familiar with it. They have very minimal local presence, beyond billboards.

 

[UCVRelics]

Now I have a reason to take a side trip when I go over for the Alabama Arkansas game in Oct. Roll Tide

 

[Zella]

Now I have a reason to take a side trip when I go over for the Alabama Arkansas game in Oct. Roll Tide

Just don't advertise your Crimson Tide allegiance!

 

[James N.]

You were in my neck of the woods!

I went to this museum as a kid but don't remember much about it. Should pay it another visit. Actually kind of surprised so many people on here are familiar with it. They have very minimal local presence, beyond billboards.

I was even more amazed one visit when my friend Mike were waiting for the museum to open - we decided to spend a while in the Berryville town museum a block away on the square. There was an exhibit detailing the sad history of the wagon train that was wiped out in Utah by a combination of Mormons and Ute Indians in the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre that largely incited the so-called Mormon War of the 1850's. It seems the train was largely made up of members from the county around Berryville, Ark. and was on the way to California when it was attacked.

 

[redbob]

Just don't advertise your Crimson Tide allegiance!

It will be hard for him not to, but have no fear; he is a pretty tough ole bird that can take care of himself.

 

[Zella]

I was even more amazed one visit when my friend Mike were waiting for the museum to open - we decided to spend a while in the Berryville town museum a block away on the square. There was an exhibit detailing the sad history of the wagon train that was wiped out in Utah by a combination of Mormons and Ute Indians in the infamous Mountain Meadows Massacre that largely incited the so-called Mormon War of the 1850's. It seems the train was largely made up of members from the county around Berryville, Ark. and was on the way to California when it was attacked.

It's been awhile since I was in there, but that is a really nice little museum! They have a great historical society focused on local genealogy. (Not that it helps me since my family isn't native to the area, but it is a great resource.)

The Mountain Meadows Massacre can still be a pretty touchy subject around here because a lot of folks do have family who were killed in it. One of the most prominent families in the wagon train still are prominent in the community.

 

[Zella]

It will be hard for him not to, but have no fear; he is a pretty tough ole bird that can take care of himself.

I am a University of Arkansas alumna but not as brainwashed as most of my classmates were. LOL Every year, they were always convinced we were going to beat Alabama. And I was always trying to gently explain that, no, we were not going to beat Alabama, and we just needed to accept it and move on. But after every game, they were all so heartbroken and confused and couldn't understand why the Hogs lost.