Gun museum railroad pop-up exhibit to roll into Claremore with Big Boy

Sep. 21—The J.M. Davis Arms & Historical Museum in Claremore will debut a temporary railroad history exhibit Oct. 14.

Though the museum is normally closed Mondays, it will open that day at 10 a.m., and the exhibit will stay at the museum until Jan. 11, 2025.

“American Treasures: The Railroad Museum of Oklahoma” will display about 150 artifacts from the titular railroad museum, located in Enid.

A few hours after the exhibit opens, a historic Union Pacific steam engine called Big Boy will stop into Claremore.

The Claremore Museum of History, Claremore Main Street and the Lilac District have designated Oct. 14 “Claremore Train Day.” Downtown businesses will offer sales, and the history museum will stock drinks and snacks. Big Boy will roll by at 1:15 p.m. at the Florence Avenue crossing.

Randy Ramer, director of the gun museum, said it’s no accident the two events are scheduled the same day.

“It’s about encouraging people from Enid to come here, and encouraging people from Claremore to go to Enid to see the larger collection,” Ramer said. “That’s always a good thing.”

Ramer said the Enid museum has over a million artifacts in its collection, many gathered by founder Frank “Watermelon” Campbell, a brakeman and conductor in the Enid area who died in 2021 at age 99.

Ramer said he recently traveled to Enid to pick out objects from the collection to display in Claremore. He said he worked with Mike Marshall, acting director of the Enid museum, to reflect the entire collection with a small sample.

The museum will present the collection with a video of Campbell, whom Ramer said was the “heart and soul” of the Enid museum.

Marshall said other items will include vintage railroad signs, lanterns, model trains, china from dining cars — “an awful lot of stuff.”

“I really depended on Randy to tell me what he thought would be attractive to the visitors at his museum, and he seemed pretty pleased with what we passed out for him,” Marshall said.

Marshall said bringing railroad artifacts to Claremore is a natural fit because of the city’s three train tracks and its rich railroad history. Ramer said this is something Claremore and Enid have in common.

“The railroads were one of the reasons why the cities became what they have become,” Ramer said.

Ramer said the gun museum has plans for more temporary exhibits over the next couple of years.

He said the museum wants to change up its offerings because interest in it has dwindled, and bringing in artifacts from other museums will help cast the gun museum’s collection in a new light.

“We want to encourage, particularly the Claremore community and the Rogers County community, to come see us,” Ramer said. “We want to offer new, interesting things. We are a community resource, and we want to make sure that we’re doing what we can to be the best community resource possible.”

Marshall said he is excited at the prospect of partnering with the gun museum.

“It’s really something museums need to do more,” Marshall said. “They need to seek out partnerships and cross-promote, and it’s just gonna be a great thing for us. I hope it is for them.”

Ramer said he hopes to renovate much of the museum ahead of the Route 66 centennial in 2026. The course of historic Route 66 runs along J.M. Davis Boulevard right past the museum, and he said he wants to at least refresh the exterior and the parking lot.

Inside, Ramer said things haven’t changed much since the museum opened in 1969. The collections are displayed in glass cases in what Ramer said is called “visible storage” in the museum world.

He said the museum hopes to offer more in-depth interpretations of the firearms that put them into larger historical context.

“We’re looking at different ways to create different zones of interest so that it’s not just display case upon display case, row upon row of firearms,” Ramer said. “…It leaves something to be desired in terms of modern museum display.”