The Horton Classic Car Museum permanently closed on February 22, 2023. Visitors planning a trip to Nocona should note that the museum is no longer operating. This page documents the collection and its history as a record of what Nocona offered as a heritage tourism attraction from its opening through its closure.
What was the Horton Classic Car Museum?
The Horton Classic Car Museum was a collection of more than 120 American vintage, classic, and muscle cars assembled by Texas oilman Pete Horton in restored historic buildings in downtown Nocona, Texas. The museum offered public access to the collection while Horton was alive and the operation was active.
The collection’s signature feature was a dedicated display room arranged as a complete run of Corvettes from the model’s first year of production (1953) through 1973 — 21 model years represented in sequence. The Corvette room reflected Horton’s organizing logic for the broader collection: a systematic approach to American automotive heritage, not simply an accumulation of impressive individual vehicles.
Pete Horton was a Texas oilman who applied his resources to restoring several historic downtown Nocona buildings as the physical framework for the museum. The restoration work was understood locally as both a personal passion project and a civic investment in a town whose economy had contracted since the peak of its bootmaking and leather-goods manufacturing era.
When and why did the museum close?
Pete Horton died on August 14, 2022. The Horton Classic Car Museum permanently closed to the public on February 22, 2023. No organization has announced plans to reopen the collection or relocate it under new ownership.
The closure represents a significant loss to Nocona’s tourism infrastructure. The Horton Museum had been one of the town’s primary draws for visitors traveling along US 82 through Montague County — a counterpart to the Tales ‘N’ Trails Museum that addressed a different audience interest (automotive heritage vs. boot-making and Indigenous artifact history).
The disposition of the 120+ vehicles following the permanent closure has not been documented in any publicly accessible source as of this writing. [VERIFY — local press from the Bowie News or Nocona News, 2023, would address this.]
Nocona’s remaining heritage attractions
With the Horton Museum closed, Nocona’s principal heritage tourism institutions are:
- Tales ‘N’ Trails Museum — opened 2010 after 15 years of community fundraising; features the animatronic “Miss Enid” Justin, Joe Benton family Native American artifact collection, and Nokona baseball glove history.
- Nocona Boot Company heritage — the history of Enid Justin’s 1925 bootmaking operation, which kept the family trade in Nocona after her brothers relocated Justin Boot Co. to Fort Worth.
- Lake Nocona — reservoir north of town for fishing, boating, and outdoor recreation.
Sources
- Nocona town hub — Horton Classic Car Museum context: 120+ vehicles, Corvette collection 1953–1973, permanently closed February 22, 2023, following Pete Horton’s death August 14, 2022.
- News Channel 6 (Wichita Falls) — “Horton Classic Car Museum to close” (2023-02-20) — closure announcement coverage; confirms February 22, 2023 date.
For other Nocona attractions, see the Nocona town hub and Tales ‘N’ Trails Museum.
