Saunders Memorial Museum

Colonel C. Burton Saunders amassed one of the finest private collections of firearms and Native American artifacts in the nation, displayed in this museum since 1952.

Colonel Charles Burton "Buck" Saunders was born February 2, 1863, near Greenville, Texas, to Judge Levi B. Saunders and Martha Sherrod. When he was less than two years old, his mother and sister were kidnapped by Native Americans, though both later escaped. The family relocated to Arkansas in 1865, and at the age of seventeen, young Buck discovered the mineral spring that would become Eureka Springs, reportedly suggesting the name "Eureka" himself and breaking a deadlock between his father and Dr. Alvah Jackson. He grew into one of the finest marksmen in American history, earning his nickname through hunting deer with a muzzle loader passed down from his grandfather. At twenty-five he was appointed deputy U.S. marshal. His shooting attracted the attention of Buffalo Bill Cody in 1893, and Saunders subsequently performed shooting exhibitions alongside Annie Oakley. He shot for the Colt company, testing every new firearm they produced and keeping each one after providing his evaluation. In 1910, at a world pistol competition in Paris, he won the championship, and on the same trip was reintroduced to Theodore Roosevelt. At the age of seventy-five, he won another pistol shooting competition in southwest Missouri.

Saunders made his fortune in real estate and mineral leases across British Columbia, Oregon, and California. His first collection of firearms was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and he spent the rest of his life assembling an even greater one. He married Gertrude Bowers in November 1906, and together they traveled the world collecting firearms, art, and artifacts. By 1950, his collection numbered approximately 2,500 items valued at over $210,000. Governor Junius Marion Futrell commissioned him a colonel in 1936. When Saunders died of a heart attack at a Hot Springs hospital on October 29, 1952, at the age of eighty-nine, his will bequeathed the entire collection to the City of Berryville along with money for a museum building and a lot on which to build it. The Saunders Memorial Museum opened to the public in May 1956.

The collection is staggering: nearly nine hundred handguns including firearms that belonged to Jesse James, Belle Starr, Cole Younger, Billy the Kid, Joaquin Murietta, Three-Fingered Jack, Jim Cummins, Sam Houston, and Wild Bill Hickok. Rare Colt Patersons, Walkers, and Dragoons trace the evolution of the revolver. Savage .45 auto pistols represent one of only approximately seven hundred ever produced. Volcanic Arms lever-action handguns sit alongside their original ammunition. Beyond firearms, the museum houses Chief Sitting Bull's headdress and battle jacket, an Arab sheik's tent, hand-carved Chinese teakwood furniture, Egyptian antiquities, Persian rugs, an original Guercino painting, and scarab bracelets collected during the Saunders' world travels.

Museum staff believe the Colonel never truly left his collection. Display cases that were locked and secured at closing are found standing open in the morning, with artifacts shifted to new positions as though someone spent the night rearranging the exhibits to their preferred arrangement. A stern, watchful presence is felt most strongly in the firearms room, where staff describe the sensation of being observed and evaluated by an unseen authority figure, as though Saunders himself still guards the treasures he spent a lifetime assembling. The feeling is described less as menacing and more as proprietary, the demeanor of a man who does not appreciate strangers handling his possessions without permission.

Visitors have reported cold spots near specific display cases, particularly those housing the outlaw firearms. Objects in the museum have been observed moving when no one is in the room. Some staff members have heard footsteps echoing through the museum after hours, steady and deliberate, as though someone is making their nightly rounds through the collection. Given that Saunders devoted his entire life to assembling these artifacts, lost his first collection in the San Francisco earthquake, and literally willed the second collection into existence through decades of travel and acquisition, the attachment that binds him to these objects may be the most understandable haunting in Arkansas.

The museum is located at 113 East Madison Avenue in Berryville, approximately thirty minutes from Eureka Springs, and is open to visitors seasonally.