The 16,652-square-foot, eight-gallery museum was built of fossilized limestone quarried nearby. Opened in 1938, the main building was financed by a $200,000 appropriation by the Oklahoma Legislature. The east wing was added in 1982 using additional legislative appropriations. During the 1990-95 period, the entire museum was remodeled with $3 million in private and public funds. 

The museum frames the family tomb in the sunken garden. Spread across the southern horizon is the Tiawah Valley. The twenty-acre museum grounds, purchased by Will Rogers in 1911 for $500 an acre, was his planned retirement home site. Following his untimely death, his widow and children donated the land, along with great parts of the collection. Today, the eight-gallery Will Rogers Memorial Museium features a 2,400-square-foot library, 18,000 photographs, and thousands of original manuscripts, private letters, contracts and personal papers.