Winchester Model 1873 Rifle Found and Preserved

This article was originally published in The Midden – Great Basin National Park: Vol. 16, No. 1, Summer 2016.

X-ray of Winchester Model 1873 Rifle from Westpark Hospital Radiology, Cody Wyoming, showing a cartridge in the cleaning rod compartment.

By Eva Jensen, Cultural Resource Program Manager

In November 2014, park archaeologists found a Winchester Model 1873 repeating rifle while conducting a routine archaeological survey for a habitat restoration project. The artifact was collected for research and preservation. Our goals were to keep the rifle in the condition we found it, essentially in a state of ‘arrested decay.’

This was a standard Model 1873 rifle, which has a 24-inch octagonal barrel in .44-40 caliber with a magazine that held up to 12 cartridges. Winchester Company historic records at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West Firearms Museum in Cody, Wyoming identified the serial number for this rifle with a manufacture and shipping date in 1882. There was no record of who purchased the gun or where it was shipped when it left the Winchester factory warehouse in New Haven, Connecticut.

Condition and conservation
Although still whole, the condition of the rifle was fragile when it was recovered. The objective was to keep the rifle in an arrested state of decay and not try to restore it to collector condition. The wood stock was highly weathered and cracked. Conservators at the firearms museum in Cody examined and performed minimal stabilization and conservation on the most delicate areas of wood. The metal that was uniformly rusted but not deeply pitted was stable. The repeating lever and other moving metal parts had seized and were not forced to move. The springs in the magazine and trigger area were intact.

Part of the assessment included X-ray imaging of the rifle to confirm it was not loaded. Westpark Hospital radiology department in Cody made the images and researchers at the museum identified a cartridge in the cleaning rod compartment in the stock of the rifle. Conservators were able to open the trap door of the compartment and remove the cartridge.

The manufacture stamp on the cartridge “U.M.C. 44 W.C.F.” is from Union Metallic Cartridge company indicating the 44 caliber and firing type as Winchester Center Fire. This was a black powder cartridge, and the stamp dates from 1887 to 1911.

Eva Jensen clearing debris to recover the rifle November 2014.

NPS Photo

The carrier block and lifter lever had been removed making the rifle a single shot that was not capable of firing multiple shots without reloading. Glen Jensen, Winchester Historian at Browning Arms Museum in Ogden, UT, and Cody Museum researcher Dan Brumley confirmed the removal was intentional. More delicate metal parts, springs, and levers were still intact and functional. Metal tacks or nails in the stock visible on the X-ray were likely from a repair for a crack in the stock. This was a common home repair and heads of the nails or tacks were clipped or fell off.

Background
Winchester Model 1873 rifles hold a prominent place in Western history and lore, accessible and popular as “everyman’s” rifle. Sometimes referred to as “the gun that won the West”, 720,610 were manufactured between 1873 and 1916 when production ended. In 1882, over 25,000 were made.

Research questions included: when was the rifle abandoned, who owned or left the rifle, and why was it abandoned?

Although not definitive, the condition of the rifle and the cartridge are the best indicators of how long the rifle may have been abandoned. Cody researcher Dan Brumley estimated the time of abandonment as roughly between 1900 and 1930 based on these indicators. Research in local area papers of the era did not reveal any known owner losing or abandoning a gun. Measuring the depth of the debris accumulation around the stock in the ground was not productive as the location was on a steep slope and accumulation is variable with weather and slope wash.

Attempts to identify who owned or left the rifle were not productive. Personal sales records did not exist at that time. No records remain from the Winchester company sale to identify where the rifle was shipped. Old newspaper accounts did not identify any potential owner who might have left the rifle. Media stories and local showings turned up potential leads but none proved to be the specific rifle. While some families had stories of “grandpa leaving his rifle” or “robberies” none were positively identified. NPS law enforcement special agents ran checks for the serial number but no leads were found. A few contacts indicated the early Indian Agents sometimes provided single shot rifles to individuals for hunting. Bureau of Indian Affairs records could not be found confirming this was a practice with the Shoshone, Goshute, or Paiute Tribes of the area. The South Snake Range is a traditional pine nut gathering and travel area for local Tribes, but other ethno-historic evidence to identify a connection between the rifle and this activity is not sufficient.

Numerous theories about why the rifle was abandoned have been considered, but none have proven positive. The previous research questions have direct bearing, and with no positive identification of owner or time frame it is unlikely there is an easy answer to cause. The area was used for hunting before and during jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service. There were no bones or remains in the area around the rifle to indicate the demise of a hapless hunter. Other activities in the area including mining and cattle and sheep grazing that span a history of over 150 years. Archaeological sites in the Snake Range show evidence of sheep camps at the turn of the 20th century. No associated artifacts indicate this was a sheep camp. Screening soil around the location of the rifle did not recover any additional artifacts to directly identify the activity. Archival and further research will continue.

The rifle is available to view at the Lehman Caves Visitor Center.