The Will Rogers Memorial was built by the people of the state of Oklahoma as a tribute to Will Rogers, a native son and world citizen, and was dedicated on November 4, 1938, the anniversary of his birth. Additional memorials at the site include “The Contemplative Will Rogers,” sculpted in native Oklahoma sandstone by Philip Alexander Zerkin in 1997 as a memorial to Delmar Collins, museum manager from 1975 to 1983; a 1942 tribute by the O.S.F. Ws. Clubs; a 1952 dedication of the Will Rogers Highway to Rogers as a humorist, world traveler, and good neighbor, identifying Highway 66 as the first road he traveled in a career that led him straight to the hearts of his countrymen; and a 1980 remembrance by the Claremore Rotary Club honoring a man who lived a life of “service above self” on Rotary International’s 75th anniversary.
