Museum of the Frontier West

Comprising more than 6,000 artifacts, the museum's general history and Joe Grandee collections are among the most comprehensive assemblages of Western material culture in a public institution.

Native Americans inhabited the West for centuries before the arrival of the first Europeans. Affiliated by band and tribe, they developed a diversity of lifeways and traditions. Their colorful societies and histories represent Native American life in popular imagination today.

Throughout the Plains and Plateau regions, Native American men wore untailored poncho-style shirts during most of the nineteenth century.

In the four decades after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, many new people entered and opened the immense territory of the trans-Mississippi West to the United States. These trappers and traders exerted far-reaching influences as the vanguard of American settlement.

During the early and mid-nineteenth century, commercial and cultural interactions between Indian and white communities led to changes in indigenous clothing styles. This garment would have been favored by many denizens of the mid-nineteenth century, trans-Mississippi frontier.

The U.S. Army operated as the federal government's principal agent of Western expansion during most of the 19th century.

Operating between the worldviews of Euro and Native Americans and serving as the tool of conflicting attitudes between East and West, the military fulfilled its various roles with both glory and disgrace.

Shooting 300 rounds a minute, the Gatling gun represented a tremendous advance in military firepower; however, it had little application in the fast-moving tactics common to the Indian Wars in the West.

For hunters of all kinds, the 19th-century American West was home to an astonishing abundance of wildlife. However, unregulated hunting had a profound and far-reaching effect on the Western environment.

During the Great Buffalo Hunt, most market hunters attempted to “get a stand” on the ground rather than chase them on horseback. This still-hunting method often allowed the hidemen to shoot dozens within a much smaller arena, easing the laborious skinning work that followed.

The choice of most professional hunters, the Sharps falling-block, fifty caliber sporting rifle, undoubtedly killed more bison than any other. Often termed a “Big Fifty,” the rifle features the plain open sights and shotgun-pattern buttplate preferred by professional hunters.

Amid fierce competition in the mid-1800s, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company became a pacesetter among arms industry marketers.

Referred to by collectors as the “Single W” or “Big W” board, Winchester’s 1890-pattern cartridge display presents an eye-catching 142 cartridges and shotshells with assorted bullets and primers.