Trigger, Roy Rogers' Horse

Died 1965 - Branson, Missouri

The Roy Rogers/Dale Evans Museum gets 200,000 visitors a year. Most come to see Trigger, Roy's dead horse.

Roy Rogers, Jr., who manages the museum, says "We close at five and stop selling tickets at 4:30. But people come after that and beg to get in for a few minutes. They drove 3,000 miles just to see Trigger. We let them in -- and they go away, happy.

While Roy Rogers, Sr. won't be coming by in his golf cart to pose in the lobby any more (he died in 1998), Trigger still has star power. Outside, a 24-foot-tall fiberglass Trigger, reared on his hind legs, lets visitors know that they have arrived.

Trigger was ridden by Rogers in every one of his motion pictures, finding his own fame in the process. After Trigger died at age 33, his hide was stretched over a plaster likeness and put on display, also reared on two legs, inside the museum. He is mounted, then, not stuffed. Remember this when you speak to museum personnel, who will loudly correct you if you get it wrong.

Trigger is not alone; Buttermilk (Dale Evans' horse) and Bullet (the Rogers' German Shepherd) are mounted alongside. But these lesser lights are given only cursory glances by visitors, attracting about as much attention as the Roy Rogers fishing trophy or Grand Marshall saddle. People linger over Trigger, studying, pointing.

The museum moved from Victorville, California to Branson, Missouri in 2003.

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