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CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT
CPYRGHT
.1 «1 f I IVATJ
Museum
Takes Aim
At Gun History
For
7-year-old James Monroe
Davis,
swallowing a bitter spoonful of medicine
was one of life’s most dreaded evils. This
time, he required more coaxing than usual.
Take the medicine, his father said, and he
would get a surprise.
The
bribe
worked.
Young
Davis
opened, swallowed, and collected his re-
ward—a
boy’s .410
gauge
shotgun
that
cost $1.50 in 1894. That was the beginning
of a firearm collection Davis spent the rest
of his
life assembling. More than 20,000
firearms
and
related
artifacts
are now
housed in the J.M. Davis Gun Museum in
Claremore, Oklahoma.
Visitors can walk for a mile through the
collection, viewing some relics that date far
back, such as a
14th-century, hand-held
cannon from the Orient. Along with the
guns, the museum also has large collec-
tions
of antique German
steins,
Indian
artifacts, World War I posters, and John
Rogers statuary, popular during the Victo-
rian period. Rogers’ sentimental portrayal
of everyday people is similar to Norman
Rockwell’s works,
Davis moved to Oklahoma in 1916, after
trading several thousand acres of Arkansas
timberland for the Mason Hotel in Clare-
more. He worked the desk at night, which
afforded him ample time for his passionate
hobby. Gun collectors from
all over the
world journeyed
to Claremore
to
trade
pieces and information with the noted au-
thority at the small hotel.
Before long, the lobby, hallways, dining
room, and seven upstairs rooms were filled
with firearms. At the entrance to the mu-
seum stands the old key box and registra-
tion desk, with dozens of guns arranged
geometrically above it just as they were in
the hotel lobby.
“On rainy afternoons, my wife and
I
would farm out our children and go to the
hotel. We would spend hours looking at
the guns, until our necks gave out,” says
Lee Good, who has been with the museum
since
it opened in 1969.
The collection spans the history of fire-
arms from
the
mid-1300’s and
basically
stops with weaponry from World War II.
There are ornately decorated
pistols,
as
well
as handguns
so
small they can be
hidden in a woman’s palm.
Muzzle-loading
rifles and Colt
pistols,
which played major roles in the history oi
this country, take up much of the collec
tion. The muzzle-loading firearm was a
primary
weapon
during
the
American
Revolution, War of 1812, and Civil War.i
At the J.M. Davis Gun Museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, weapons belonging to Bonnie Parker,
John Wesley Hardin, and Pretty Boy Floyd are seeI in the Gallery of Outlaw Guns.
Later, along with the Winchester rifle and
Colt revolver,
it helped settle the West.
There are about 1,000 Colt firearms in
the
collection,
including
a
rare Walker
Colt, manufactured in 1847. Following the
advice of Texas Ranger Samuel Walker,
the Colt Patented Firearms Company de-
signed a pistol for mounted troops. The
result was the .44
caliber model with a
9-inch barrel that weighs almost 5 pounds.
The Walker Colt can be
fired
six times
without reloading.
Many of the
firearms
feature unusual
design styles. The wide-muzzled blunder-
buss was used in the late 1700’s and early
1800’s. The
muzzle
of
the
largest one
that’s on
exhibit measures more than 4
inches in diameter.
“Hie
design
of
the
blunderbuss was
strictly a psychological thing,” says Good.
“It didn’t scatter the shot
like the muz-
zle suggests.”
Many of the
pieces
indicate the gun-
makers were expert craftsmen. One of the
most ornate models is a rifle with a Mique-
let lock mechanism, a style that originated
in Spain around
1600. The gun
is deco-
rated with more than 50,000 pieces of nat-
ural and
stained
ivory,
brass, and gold
inlays. Another piece designed primarily
as a work of art is a 17th-century German
crossbow.
Ivory,
bone,
and
mother-of-
pearl inlays form signs of the zodiac and
other celestial figures along the stock.
The smallest gun in the museum
is the
fColibri, which weighs only 2.5 ounces and
fires
miniscule
2.7 mm
cartridges. The
Largest
is an .82 caliber musket made in
China. The overall length of that gun is 8
feet, 10 inches.
Almost everyone who visits th^P^^RGHT
is eventually drawn toward the Gallery of
Outlaw Guns, to view firearms once used
by such infamous owners as Pancho Villa,
John Wesley Hardin, Pretty Boy Floyd,
and Bonnie Parker.
The museum, at 333 North Lynn Riggs
Blvd,,
is open daily from 8:30 a.m. to 5
p.m., and from
to 5 p.m, on Sunday.
Additional information on the collection is
available by writing to J.M, Davis Gun
Museum, Box 966, Claremore, Oklahoma
74018; or call (918) 341-5707.
The stock ofal 7th-century German crossbow u
decorated with ivory , bone, and mother-of-pearl
September 1985
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