Some things to see at the Autry

Museum of the American West

4700 Western Heritage Way, Los Angeles, CA

Patsy Montana's Guitar

Wood acoustic guitar made by the Larson Brothers, circa 1937. Made for Patsy Montana at her request for a guitar similar to a Martin guitar. This became one of the brands of guitars the Larsons made along with the Maurer and Prairie State.

Click on the campfire image to hear Patsy Montana sing Cowboy's Sweetheart. Recorded on August 16, 1935. Ruby Blevins aka Patsy Montana was born in Beaudry, Arkansas in 1908. In 1929 she travelled to California to study violin at the U. of the West. She won a local talent contest yodeling, singing and playing her guitar. Her prize was a spot on The Breakfast Club on KNX 1070, Hollywood. She travelled to the Chicago World's Fair with her brothers in 1933 to enter a watermelon and to meet two pen pals who claimed to be from from Muleshoe, Texas; Millie and Dollie Good. Mildred and Dorothy were really two farm girls from the Illinois plains. While in Chicago, she auditioned for a singing role but began giggling during her song. The talent scout thought it was part of her act and fell in love with her style. She won a place as the singer for the Prairie Ramblers on Powerful WLS 890 in Chicago. The Prairie Ramblers would accompany her on her ARC, Decca, and RCA Victor recordings. In 1935 she had a million seller with "I Want to be a Cowboy's Sweetheart"-the first female artist to acheive that level, and did it in the middle of the depression. Patsy worked with Gene Autry and made a movie with him in 1939-Colorado Sunset. She also worked with Red Foley and her old pen pals Millie and Dollie Good who now billed themselves as The Girls of the Golden West. Patsy was inducted into the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame in 1987 and into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996. She died in 1996 in California. Gene Autry and his cow-punching pals swallow their pride when Smiley Burnette spends their land stake on a sissy dairy ranch, but it's a man's job after all when racketeers demand a payoff from them. With screen Tarzans Buster Crabbe and Elmo Lincoln.

The Cowboy

Throwing Rope

Eight-strand, 7/16 inch, herringbone braided rawhide reata, attributed to Luis Ortega, mid-1900s (Museum of the American West, 86.2.114)

Saddle

Single, Mexican-rigged, Mexican or Charro-style saddle (20th Century) (Museum of the American West, 86.7.4.1)

Changing Horses on the Pony Express

Painting by Frank Tenney Johnson, CHANGING HORSES ON THE PONY EXPRESS, 1927. (Museum of the American West, 90.142.3)

PASASE EL BEATO APARIZION A VIVIR A MEXICO Y PASO CONSUS CARRETAS POR LAS PLATAS DE REAL DE ZACATECAS Blanket chest, circa 1825. Dress spur, Buermann Manufacturing Company, late 19th to early 20th Century