Cowboys: History & Hollywood

Step into the boots of America’s most enduring icon in Cowboys: History and Hollywood, an all-new exhibition that explores the real-life grit and the silver-screen glamor of the American Cowboy.

October 18, 2025 - April 19, 2026

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum

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Included with Museum admission

Get ready to ride into the story of the American Cowboy—real and reimagined

From the open range to the big screen, this exhibition blends true Western history with Hollywood mythmaking. Discover how the cowboy—once a rugged laborer driving cattle across unforgiving terrain—became a larger-than-life legend symbolizing strength, self-reliance, and freedom. Explore authentic gear, rare photographs, historic artifacts, and memorabilia from classic Western films that shaped the cowboy image we know today.

Learn how presidents—including Ronald Reagan himself—embraced the cowboy persona, connecting leadership with the values of hard work, liberty, and determination.
Whether you grew up playing cowboy or fell in love with them through film, this exhibition will take you on a journey through fact, folklore, and the cultural legacy of a figure that still rides tall in the American imagination.

As part of this 10,000 square foot exhibition, artifacts will include dozens of historic saddles, cowboy hats, firearms and other cowboy equipment from the 19th and early 20th centuries, including an original pair of 1850’s jeans. The exhibit also includes authentic memorabilia from Hollywood items from Yellowstone, Gunsmoke, Back to the Future III, Toy Story, and Annie Get Your Gun, items from John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Ronald Reagan.

“Cowboys can sometimes grow up and be President.”

June 5, 1985

“I seem to remember a famous country and western song warning mothers not to let their babies grow up to be cowboys… The song forgot to say that cowboys can sometimes grow up and be President.”