Saturday, July 17, 2010

The End of the Happy Trails


If your not over 40 years old then Roy Rogers must be an unkown or vauge character to you. Someone mentioned in the lyrics of a Lyle Lovett song perhaps, or maybe you bought a hamburger at a fast food place with his name on it.


But for us old geezers, Roy was the "King Of The Cowboys".




He has been dead 12 years now. Yesterday and today they auctioned of the stuff from the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum.



The Museum was in Victorville California for many years. We drove by time and again on the way to the in-laws' home. Never stopped. always wanted too but....



In 2003 they moved the museum to Branson, Missouri, a play ground place for middle aged middle America.

I guess Roy's allure had faded away by then, cause it only lasted less than seven years in that location. So now they are auctioning off Roy's stuff.
Trigger Roy's Palomino and the star of a bazillion B-movies and a TV show was auctioned.



The original Trigger died in 1953 over 57 years ago. He was stuffed and mounted in his famous rearing stand and displayed in the Roy's museum.



Trigger sold yesterday for almost a quarter of a million dollars.


Bullet the Wonder Dog who was Roy and Dale's personal pet dog became a star in the Roy Rogers TV Series. Again stuffed and mounted Bullet fetch $35,000 at auction.



It is not the end of the trail for Roy and this dog and horse, but the happy trail part is definitely over.

3 comments:

BB-Idaho said...

Yep, King of the Cowboys. Those years produced a lot of heros for us kids..Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry, Gabby Hayes.
The white hats were sure to win. Not sure of the reasons, but the genre died out and as the Statler Brothers sang, whatever happened to Randolph Scott has happened to the industry..

drlobojo said...

The Three Mesquiteers, Lash LaRue,Johnny Mac Brown, Rin Tin Tin, Tim McCoy, Tim Holt, and even back to William S. Hart, Will Rogers, and Tom Mix they were heroes all.

Many overlapped the real West that they portrayed. Tom Mix used his six guns long before he stood before a camera. Bill Hart was a pallbearer at Wyatt Earp's funeral.
Of course Will Rogers roped his way into respectability in front of the camera long before he started telling jokes.

Who replaced them?

Deanna said...

I grew up in Victorville and Apple Valley and went to the museum as a child. My parents knew Roy -- he used to come into my dad's wholesale plumbing supply business on occasion. When his son, Dusty, built Roy and Dale a new home, he bought all the plumbing supplies (including a rather amazing item called "The Environment") from my dad. My husband's family attended the same church with Roy and Dale. They were very nice, very down-to-earth people.