National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum

The museum opened in 1955 and covers the West across art, history and rodeo rather than one of them. James Earle Fraser's End of the Trail - a slumped rider on an exhausted horse, made in plaster for the 1915 San Francisco exposition and about five and a half metres high - stands in its own hall; it was left outdoors for decades in California, deteriorated badly, and was moved and restored here. The art collection holds Frederic Remington and Charles Russell in depth. Prosperity Junction is a full-scale walk-through recreation of a cattle town at dusk. The Native American collections and the rodeo hall run alongside, and the museum has worked to complicate the mythology it also displays.

What you actually see

• End of the Trail - Fraser's 1915 plaster, restored after decades outdoors.
• Remington and Russell in depth - the core of the art collection.
• Prosperity Junction - a full-scale cattle town interior at dusk.
• Native American and rodeo collections - alongside the western art.

When to go

Year round; it is indoors. Three hours.

Honest expectations

It is large and takes longer than expected. Presentation of the frontier remains partly celebratory even where it is complicated. Special exhibitions cost extra. It is away from downtown - a car is easiest.

Nearby

Oklahoma City's downtown and memorial are south-west.