Some artifacts are more suggestion than fact - it’s easy to make the conclusion that a pistol displayed in one of the exhibits was one used, by Wayne, on set in fact, it’s from Downes’ personal collection, placed for ambiance. But under the management of Museum Director Brian Downes - a former Wild West performer and travel writer - the museum raised $2.5 million for a building that includes a small theater, an expansive gift shop (best-selling items include a tin sign with Wayne holding a rifle beside “THIS COMMUNITY PROTECTED BY NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH,” and The Official John Wayne Way to Grill) and a gallery, about the size of a large Starbucks, where all manner of Wayne trinkets are arranged into three thematic areas: 'Movie Star,' 'Family Man' (his massive station wagon, customized by Pontiac so that The Big Man could easily maneuver), and 'American.' Until this May, the birthplace museum was little more than a humble, sleepy old house, believed to be where the 13-pound infant Wayne came into the world as Marion Morrison, and a van, airbrushed with scenescapes of Wayne, straight out of the ‘80s. When I drive into town, the sky’s a perfect shade of Midwestern blue-black, and the lights of the courthouse square - one of the best preserved in all of America, according to various proud brochures and friendly waitresses - can be seen for miles. Winterset, population just over 5,000, is the type of town where students toilet-paper friends’ homes in anticipation of homecoming and the Wednesday night special at the local diner is ham balls.

Drive down John Wayne Drive in Winterset, Iowa, and you’ll find it: the John Wayne Birthplace Museum, designed with an imperative to make it “timeless and masculine.” There’s a bronze of Wayne, splay-legged across one street, there’s a garage filled with tractors across the other, there’s a makeshift war memorial, perched on a trailer with “PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN” emblazoned on the side.

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