http://www.tulsaworld.com/homepage2...cle_268aac76-1bb7-569f-9c67-dc7cad0965f1.html
He went into it kicking and screaming, but before long Joe Wanenmacher called it his own. Now, as the Wanenmachers Tulsa Arms Show celebrates 60 years, it is a family business and likely will live on for another 60 or at least as long as gun laws allow.
This weekend at the Expo Square Exchange Center the twice-annual 11-acre gun show with 4,200 tables, 7,000 exhibitors and 35,000 to 40,000 people in attendance continues a tradition that started in April 1955 with 19 tables set up pretty close to the same place in the old armory at the Tulsa County fairgrounds.
It started with the Indian Territory Gun Collectors Association, 80-year-old Joe Wanenmacher said Wednesday. It was just a group of gun enthusiasts who got together at The Sportsman sporting goods store in Utica Square.
Their idea was to hold a show so they could see other collectors guns from around the state.
Wanenmacher was a young petroleum engineering student at the University of Texas in 1955 but joined the Indian Territory group (and is still a member) after coming to Tulsa to work in his fathers petroleum consulting firm in 1961.
At that time I was a shooter and not too interested in gun collecting, he said. I was probably one of their worst club members until shortly before 1968.
As the clubs secretary-treasurer planned to leave that year, the stage was set for an unsuspecting Wanenmacher.
[More at the link above.]
Great story - lots of history about the show.
He went into it kicking and screaming, but before long Joe Wanenmacher called it his own. Now, as the Wanenmachers Tulsa Arms Show celebrates 60 years, it is a family business and likely will live on for another 60 or at least as long as gun laws allow.
This weekend at the Expo Square Exchange Center the twice-annual 11-acre gun show with 4,200 tables, 7,000 exhibitors and 35,000 to 40,000 people in attendance continues a tradition that started in April 1955 with 19 tables set up pretty close to the same place in the old armory at the Tulsa County fairgrounds.
It started with the Indian Territory Gun Collectors Association, 80-year-old Joe Wanenmacher said Wednesday. It was just a group of gun enthusiasts who got together at The Sportsman sporting goods store in Utica Square.
Their idea was to hold a show so they could see other collectors guns from around the state.
Wanenmacher was a young petroleum engineering student at the University of Texas in 1955 but joined the Indian Territory group (and is still a member) after coming to Tulsa to work in his fathers petroleum consulting firm in 1961.
At that time I was a shooter and not too interested in gun collecting, he said. I was probably one of their worst club members until shortly before 1968.
As the clubs secretary-treasurer planned to leave that year, the stage was set for an unsuspecting Wanenmacher.
[More at the link above.]
Great story - lots of history about the show.
