Weston Wednesday: Dewey's Bowersock store offers lesson in history

Editor's Note: In collaboration with the Bartlesville Area History Museum, the Examiner-Enterprise has revived the late Edgar Weston's 'Revisiting the Past' columns that ran in the newspaper from 1997-99. Weston's columns recount the history of Bartlesville as well as Washington, Nowata and Osage counties.

In early January 1968, Mr. O.A. Patridge and Glenn Schober came to see me about remodeling the Bowersock Store across the street south of the Dewey Hotel and converting it into the Tom Mix Museum. It was wintertime and my farming was limited during that season so I agreed to accept the job.

The Bowersock Store had been constructed several years before and operated for several years. Super markets were becoming a competition and forcing small stores to close or become larger. Bowersocks closed and moved into a much larger store in Dewey.

The vacated store became a Laundromat and dry cleaning shop which caused much wear and abuse to the building. They were relocated and I began renovation of the building, preparing it for the Tom Mix Museum. Just mention the name Tom Mix and almost simultaneously another name, Tony, pops into many a graying head. Tony was the horse who carried the “King of Cowboys” to a fame that refuses to die. In the course of construction, I was trying to decide upon an exhibit center and decided upon a first rate replica of the famous Chesnut-Sorrell with white stockings on his back legs. I sought the help of Geraldine, my wife, who is a sometimes oil painter with general abilities in all-things artistic.

We had a general agreement that the Museum should display the figure of a horse resembling Tony. At the start, we tried to round up a figure that would look like Tony. We contacted several dealers in horse mannequins. We could not find what we wanted. The mannequins we located were all too lumpy, too muscular and too fat for Tony. In addition, they were not good likenesses of living horses.

Tony was not a heavy, thick-bodied horse. He was reasonably smooth, well-proportioned and alert-looking. While we were traveling around looking at horse figures and making inquiries, we learned that Woolaroc Museum had a horse mannequin that they had no plans for using.

The Woolaroc staff verified this and offered to give us the horse if we needed it for the Tom Mix Museum.

On March 20, 1968 we went to Woolaroc and picked up the horse mannequin. The horse figure had been purchased from a firm in Toledo Ohio around 1906 by Joe Goverau’s Harness and Saddle Shop at 110 E Second Street in Bartlesville. The horse figure was on a platform with rollers and was rolled out on the sidewalk each day to display harness on. The horse figure was a wood frame with sized canvas covering it and dapple gray colored.

I talked to Geraldine about making the mannequin into a replica of Tony. She was willing if she could get some expert advice. We went to the Cowboy Hall of Fame after contacting Dean Krakel, the Managing Director, and he took us downstairs to the office of Juan Menchaca, the Museum’s Chief Curator, in charge of the museums figures.

He took us to his workshop where he explained the process of constructing the horse named Twister who attracts so much attention in the Cowboy Hall of Fame. He described how he had taken store-bought mannequins, shaved them down in places and built them up in other places to make the figures more realistic. We spent 5 hours with Juan Menchaca. He was very willing to answer any questions and tried to explain how to prepare replicas.

Geraldine felt better after meeting Juan and having firsthand information on how to proceed. We moved the mannequin to our home locating it on our screened back porch which we covered the outside with canvas and Geraldine began work on Tony.

It was a slow tedious job adding 1/4 inch to an area each day, then drying it with heat lamps. The mixture was fiber, artist’s plaster and glue. She had to work on all areas that needed building up but had to leave the area and work on other areas until it was dry then return for another 1/4 inch layer.

Geraldine spent time each day on shaping Tony. She made eyelashes, shaped the nostrils, dyed the mane and tail and the last project was painting Tony with oil paints. You can see the end result in the Tom Mix Museum.

We opened the Tom Mix Museum on June 1, 1968. The display cases were completed and the displays were in place. Tony, Geraldine’s horse, had been brought in from the farm and removed from the platform and bolted down to the floor. Tom Mix’s silver mounted show saddle was polished and placed upon Tony’s back. Tony’s silver mounted bridle was polished and in place; also, Tony’s martingale was polished and in place. We were then ready for the opening.

Monte Montana had been hired to bring his trained horse “Rex” to Dewey to perform for the opening. Rex had plastic horseshoes on and could be ridden into the bank and other businesses, Monte Montana rode Rex up to the door of the Tom Mix Museum, Monte ducked his head down, and rode into the Museum. As soon as Rex spotted our Tony he nickered to Tony and walked over and attempted to bite Tony on the neck. We pulled Rex away then realized that Rex being a live horse had been fooled by our Tony, a prepared horse figure.

The grand opening of Tom Mix Museum, opened with the ribbon cutting ceremony and visitors could then tour the museum. Among the notables at the opening was Ruth Mix Hill, the daughter of Tom and Olive Stokes Mix, and her son Hickman Hill. Ruth Hill was presented a lifetime membership in the Tom Mix Museum.

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Weston Wednesday: Dewey's Bowersock store offers lesson in history