Sunday, March 20, 2016

Texas Artifacts in the Autry Museum

Last week Martina and I were visiting friends in Los Angeles and had the opportunity to go to the Museum of the American West, formerly known as the Autry Museum of Western Heritage. The museum not only has a great collection of movie memorabilia and costumes but also has a fantastic collection of western artifacts. For folks interested in Texas history, one glass case includes John Wesley Hardin's .45 caliber 1873 Peacemaker and his .41 caliber 1877 long Colt; the pistol of lawman/outlaw John Selman (who killed Hardin in an El Paso saloon); and also the gun of US Marshall George Scarborough (who later killed Selman). An interesting fact about Scarborough is that he could very well have been hanged for killing an unarmed man had a thief not later confessed to stealing Selman's pistol after Scarborough shot him down.

Although John Wesley Hardin was reputed to have been so mean that he once killed a man for snoring, he claimed to have never killed anyone that didn't have it coming. Curiously enough, folks that knew Hardin said that he was a gentleman. Here's Bob Dylan singing his ballad about the famous gunslinger, which seems to have been written from the viewpoint of someone in the "gentleman" camp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKUX4DTkC4g&list=PLknidvzcLCRHDmB5A4hr4vBDxCqUvs3Et








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