Site Visit: J. M. Davis Arms and Historical Museum

I visited the J. M. Davis Arms and Historical Museum in Claremore, OK with my extended family in the middle of August. They had never been and neither had I. But it was nearby, suggested donation admission, gave us something mutual to do, and probably had air conditioning (which it did). At first blink, it appeared to be a large room with an information desk asking for donations, dispensing information, and sporting a volunteer. A gift shop was nearby for the kitschy Route 66 and John Wayne souvenirs. I was given a hand out sheet which described J.M. Davis' beginning and how the collection came to be and indicated that the tour started to the right (I promptly folded it in quarters and put it away). The collection started with the hotel lobby of the former Mason Hotel that Mr. Davis had purchased and used it to show off his collection of firearms. The "hotel" display initially struck me as the old school museums where the entire collection was on display but with no interpretation to understand what it was I was looking at. There was a case with interpretive placards that had his first and last weapons acquired as well as the oldest, a Chinese hand cannon from the 1200's.


"Gee, that's a lot of guns I don't know anything about!"

But it was the meaningless display of weapons on the wall the gave me a false first impression of a guy who had a lot of things but didn't know what he had, so he put them all together to make some sort of weapon mosaic to adorn the walls. Like a child's collection of sea shells in a shoe box.


Making my way out of the room was the directory of where weapons were. It wasn't very helpful to understanding what I was about to invest my precious time. Immediately to that side was a display on Native American cultures, then a collection of beer steins. It appeared that Mr. Davis collected all sorts of things and they were on display in this museum, as well as a model train set, recruiting posters, saddles, spurs, and boot jacks. It was looking like a child's box of shells indeed.

At least the Native American stuff had some information
about what it was that we were looking at

Then came the guns. From all over the world by manufacturers big and small, machined perfection and homemade or modified, of all shapes, sizes, and functions. The basic feeling was overwhelming hopelessness, like having to find every 1967 penny out of a vault 3 feet deep in pennies. Lines of display cases with a 6in x 4in placard describing the weapon's caliber, country of origin, model, make, serial number if known, where it was made if known and maybe a little blurb about it. Such as "The standard rifle of the US army in WWII". Sometimes it was grouped by conflict, or by manufacturer, or by type all over the building. It was not very well laid out and it seemed that there was a lot of overlap. But the volume of display cases stretched on for quite some ways before suddenly turning to reveal more display cases.

A display on the Enfield rifle, a fairly typical display style for this museum

But if you are into firearms and have the patience and time to appreciate them, boy is this the place for you. You want 4 panels of muzzle loading long arms? How about a whole section of Smith and Wesson? Japanese WWII rifles? There were some interpretive sections where they took the time to highlight certain weapons or people who owned the weapon you see in front of you. But mostly it was like the panel display case above.

 As usual, with most modern weapon displays, I look for "my" weapon. The BAMFiest weapon to exist on sheer looks alone, the Lewis Gun.

Lewis Gun? Check!

I even found the extremely rare 1938 French sub machine gun; not one, but two!

The French only produced 1958 of the MAS-1938 before German
occupation and unknown amount after the war until 1946. The
barrel and the stock are at different angles, which was thought
to aid  in recoil. 

A whole display on notorious weapons and their owners...

In this display they had weapons from Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd,
Alvin Karpis (bandit), John Wesley Hardin (killer), and
 Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow (Bonnie and Clyde, bank robbers)



Text reads: Pancho Villa, Bandit. This gun, a .44 Smith & Wesson Single
Action Revolver was purchased from Pablo Gonzales
by Merle A. Gill in 1933 in El Paso, Texas. Gonzales was a 
former member of Villa's band in 1917. This gun was one of many that
had been carried by Villa. The gun has am 8in barrel and shoots the
.44 "American" cartridge. This same type of gun was found on "Wild Bill"
Hickok when killed in Deadwood, S. Dakota in 1875 by Jack McCall

All manner of weapons were in the collection, including air guns, BB rifles, toys, and Sci-Fi weapons.

Text reads: "Disintegrator" - Buck Rodgers 25th Century.
With 800,000 Buck Rodgers pistols added to BB gun sales,
the company went over the million dollar sales mark in 1934.
Retail price $0.05/ Daisy MFG. CO.
Plymouth, Michigan. (12631)  

My family wanted to see a display that one of the members of their church had loaned for a display

An interpretive display on weapon making

on modern war and they managed to find it. I write managed because of the sheer size of the place made it difficult to find things. The kids were running out of steam and it was about lunch time and we were making it back to the entrance to leave when we found an interpretive display on how weapons were originally made in America. It looks like no one was supposed to be in there to talk to people and it was behind a bunch of display cases and if we had traveled one row over we would have never saw it. Which was a shame, because so much more could be done with it.


For being a "gun museum", 10 out of 10. For being a historical museum, well that can be tricky. Because it did have historical weapons, there was some labeling, there were interpretive areas that explain a weapon's significance. However, there were clear examples of just throwing weapons in a display without much interpretation at all. The interpretive aspects were hard find. I think it comes down to exhibit design. The museum suffered from poor museum design. Long rows of displays, inadequate mapping, inconsistent labeling methods, weird collections like the beer steins detracted from "historical" and "weapons" in the museum. While it could be argued that the steins were historical, it still doesn't fit will with the over all museum display. For those reasons I would give it a 7 out of 10. It's not a total waste of time, but can be overwhelming and frustrating if you are looking for something specific. Enjoy the interpretive placards and exhibits when and where you stumble upon them.


P.S. Can anyone explain to me how a pepperbox works? Does it revolve on an action (like a revolver)or after each firing you have to manually move the a loaded barrel?