CTHM is excited to announce a new exhibition of Texas spurs. The recently installed showcases are in our first floor lobby. Now a part of the Museum’s permanent collection, the exhibit features hand crafted spurs by Texas craftsmen Bianchi, Buermann, Crockett, Kelly Brothers, McChesney, Shipley and Alfred Smith, to name a few. Spur experts Bruce Bartlett and Kurt House, both from San Antonio, curated the collection.
The current display of the Museum’s Plains Indian Art Collection is only a fraction of artifacts that ultimately will be exhibited.The Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum is planning a new expansion of exhibit space in two adjacent historic buildings that will bring to life the art and culture of Native American Indian tribes. Our American Indian Art and Culture Gallery will display objects including weaponry, cradles, war bonnets, beaded war shirts, painted parfleche envelopes, illustrations on muslin and other rare and important American Indian artifacts. Also of noteworthy mention are approximately 90 hand-colored stone lithographs from the Folio Edition of the “History of the Indian Tribes of North America” (1836-1844) by Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall, Esq.
The Edward L Tinker Collection consists of equipment made and used by the cowboys of North and South America. Tinker, a New York lawyer who traveled widely in Mexico and South America, assembled the collection in order to illustrate open-range ranching on both continents. He gave it to the University of Texas at Austin in hopes that it would, he wrote, “fire the imaginations of succeeding generations to learn more about their neighbors to the south and thus, destroy that foolish feeling of foreignness know as xenophobia.” The collection is on long-term loan from the University of Texas at Austin to Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum. There are approximately 975 objects in the “Horsemen of the Americas – Tinker Collection.”
