Anaheim : Plan for Autry Museum Surprises City Officials

City officials said Wednesday that they were surprised and disappointed to learn that a proposed $12-million museum to be named after former singing cowboy Gene Autry may find a home in Los Angeles and not in Anaheim, the home of his Angels baseball team.

The officials blamed pending lawsuits involving the California Angels, owned by Autry, and the city as the reason for stalled negotiations on a local museum site.

Anaheim seemed “certainly the most logical” choice for the Gene Autry Western Heritage Museum, Councilwoman Miriam Kaywood said.

Mayor Pro Tem Lew Overholt agreed: “This is the home of the Angels. It seems appropriate that this be the home of the Gene Autry museum.

“We’d like it in Anaheim. I don’t think that’s any secret,” Overholt declared.

On Tuesday, a Los Angeles committee composed of several City Council members approved the construction of a 100,000-square-foot facility to house the museum in Griffith Park. Before construction begins, however, the project will require approval from the full City Council. The Autry Foundation previously proposed to build the museum in Burbank but abandoned the project after opposition from environmentalists and neighbors.

Officials in Anaheim had “kicked around” the idea of an Autry museum in the city “for as many years as they’ve been kicking around the idea of a museum,” city spokeswoman Sheri Erlewine said. But a 2-year-old lawsuit and its offshoots against the city over property rights to the Anaheim Stadium parking lot “pretty much stalled” any discussion on an Anaheim museum, she said.

The museum would feature Autry and other screen and real-life cowboys. It also would include a 10,000-piece collection from the Frontier Museum in Temecula in Riverside County.