Oklahoma City’s culture prides itself on its Wild West past, as evident by its most stunning attraction, The National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum .

This establishment is a wonderful family attraction, with educational programs geared towards children and adults alike.  For those with higher brows, the quantity of precious art housed at Western Heritage will occupy the aficionado for days.  The William S. and Ann Atherton Art of the American West Gallery holds a couple thousand items, paintings, and sculpture in its collection alone, the most famous of which are the masterpieces created by Charles Marion Russell and Frederic Remington Russell.

The natural environment also heavily influences the city’s sense of self, and the Myriad Botanical Gardens presents visitors to the city with over a thousand different species of plants from all six continents on which plants grow.  Be sure to check out the Wet and Dry Mountains, rainy and dry tropical zones respectively, as well as the various palms, cycads, orchids, begonies, euphorbias, gingers, and bromeliads put on display at the Crystal Bridge.

Musically, Oklahoma City can point to its strong classical scene as a source of pride.  Though founded as recently as 1988, the Oklahoma City Philharmonic’s history really dates fifty years further back, to 1938, when the Oklahoma Symphony Orchestra was created.  In coming decades, the OSO would garner international praise for its radio broadcasts, which were made accessible to American troops overseas.  The year it disbanded, its Philharmonic successor came into being and is currently, according to its website, “the largest performing arts organization in the state.”  Recording for services as various as PBS television and Kathie Lee Gifford’s Christmas Special, the OKC Philharmonic has been playing in the Civic Center Music Hall since 2001, when the venue underwent a $50+ million renovation.