Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Museum Family Adventure

The King of the Cowboys and the Queen of the West in Branson, MO

May 14, 2009

The legendary Roy Rogers and Dale Evans gifted the world with many memorable legacies, and the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum is one that every family will enjoy.

Museum visits are more than a foray into the past when they spring to life with childhood memories and visions of good guys in white hats. The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum is full of life and entertainment for the whole family.

Roy Rogers, The King of the Cowboys

Millions remember attending the Saturday afternoon matinee at the local theater, arriving decked out in a Roy Rogers western outfit to better help their cowboy hero catch the bad guys. Roy always got his man, and he did so with a song in his heart and one on his lips. Roy’s lilting voice and brilliant yodeling have touched many hearts over many years.

Dale Evans, The Queen of the West

Before 1945, Roy had appeared with dozens of leading ladies in his films, but when Dale Evans was cast with Roy in The Cowboy and the Senorita, all other leading ladies disappeared from sight. The world fell in love with Roy and Dale as an onscreen couple and two years later, Roy, then a widower, asked his leading lady to be his wife.

It was Dale who wrote “Happy Trails”, the song that would become the couple’s musical signature. Even today, the song is known by millions worldwide.

The Magical World of the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum

There’s more than typical museum fodder inside the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum. There are memories and good feelings. A trip to the museum with children too young to have experienced the impact of Roy and Dale offers parents one of the most incomparable opportunities in the world.

It isn’t often that parents or grandparents can truly share their own childhoods with their children. But at the museum, with the real Trigger and Buttermilk, Bullet and Nellybelle, with everything from Roy’s cereal boxes to parade saddles and white hats and Dale’s spectacular cowgirl outfits to her tender writings, parents can take their children on a journey not available anywhere else in this modern world.

The Happy Trails Theater at the museum also features a live musical tribute to cowboy music by “Roy Rogers, Jr. and the High Riders with Dustin Roy Rogers.” Roy, "Dusty" Jr. is Roy and Dale’s son and Dustin is their grandson.

There are documentary Roy and Dale film clips and informational audio boxes throughout the exhibit. And because taking photographs inside the museum is allowed, parents and children have the extraordinary opportunity to be photographed together with legendary items from the parents’ youth.

Branson Accommodations Include the Roy Rogers Bunkhouse

Three miles from downtown Branson is the Westgate “Branson Woods” Resort that includes a lodge, cabins and hotel suites. Inside the resort are two very special cabins available for nightly rental—the Roy Rogers Bunkhouse and the Dale Evans Ranchhouse. These unique cabins have been completely decorated and stocked by the Rogers family to reflect the tastes and ambiance of Roy and Dale’s own home. Staying in one of these western-themed cabins can add great fun to the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum experience.

The museum and the cabins are also close to the many other entertainments Branson, Missouri has to offer, including Silver Dollar City, a rustic amusement park that combines down home country-flavored entertainments with modern rides and thrills.

A Lasting Impression on the World

Roy and Dale lived a life admired by millions, less for their celebrity than for the wholesome and caring way they treated family, friends and fans. They were heroes and role models to boys and girls, men and women. And because of Roy’s obsession with saving just about everything, new generations who visit the museum get to experience the joy that is the world of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, while those who grew up with the King of the Cowboys and the Queen of the West get to relive the fun and hero influence of their youth. The museum is a place where family matters.

The Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum is located at 3950 Green Mountain Dr., Branson, MO. 65616. Phone: 417-339-1900

The copyright of the article Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Museum Family Adventure in Family Travel is owned by Tricia Spencer. Permission to republish Roy Rogers & Dale Evans Museum Family Adventure in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.