I stumbled across this Dick Tracy Museum a few years back in Pawnee, in north central Oklahoma.  The place wasn’t open the day I drove by, so I had to content myself with a few outside shots.

Connection?  Pawnee is the birthplace of Chester Gould, the creator of the Dick Tracy character. 

Born in 1900, Gould moved to Chicago in 1921 to pursue his dream of becoming a cartoonist with the Chicago Tribune.  It took ten years, but finally the paper accepted one of his many cartoon strip ideas and Dick Tracy was born. 

Gould authored the strip from 1931 to 1977.  The franchise continued after that with various artists and writers.

I cannot look at an Apple Watch without thinking of the famed cartoon detective.

I will admit that although I read the comic pages avidly in my youth I only once in a while read an entire Tracy installment.  My aversion to continuing storylines, be they in print or on TV, continues to this day.

There’s also a Dick Tracy Museum in Woodstock, Illinois, where Gould lived after retirement and died in 1985.