Ranch history in oils and artifacts: The Metcalfe Museum opens for spring

The Washita River cuts through tough soil on this side of the Oklahoma-Texas border beside an 1890's homestead whose history is illustrated in all kinds of ways.

DURHAM, OKLAHOMA – The Washita River cuts through tough soil on this side of the Oklahoma-Texas border beside an 1890's homestead whose history is illustrated in all kinds of ways.

"Red hills and valleys green with wheat," says Vicki St. Clair. "It's beautiful." 

She and her husband moved from Norman, Oklahoma, to help watch over the Break 'O Day Ranch 25 years ago at the request of its owner Howard Metcalfe.

"My mother and grandparents both came up here to file on land," he told us in 1993.

He was a historian and well known local character we featured on a couple of different occasions.

His mother, Augusta Metcalfe, was a nationally-known artist in her time.

She spent close to 80 years sketching, painting, and running 640 acres in Roger Mills County.

Vicki states, "She was tough. She kept her word. She was responsible, and you could count on her." 

The 'Sagebrush Painter' as she came to be known, recorded local life and legend.

"She painted what she saw," says St. Clair. "In her older years, she painted from memory."

Life Magazine came out to shoot her portrait in 1952.

WKY Television visited in the early 60s to produce a documentary called 'Pioneer Painter'.

Augusta passed away in 1970, Howard in 1999, but not before setting up a museum and trust to preserve the art and artifacts that remained.

The Metcalfes, Vicki says, "wanted to preserve the pioneer way of life, the artwork, and the land itself."

Hard to find and remote, the museum and homestead close for the winter each year, but for more than 20 years, on March 1, it opens like the first sign of spring.

For more information on hours and monthly activities go to metcalfemuseum.org.

To view the WKY documentary on Augusta Metcalfe, click here.