1882 Winchester rifle found in Great Basin National Park

[Uncle Jimbo]

Wouldn't it be fun to find something like this.
Make sure you go to the web site and look at the pictures.


GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK — Great Basin National Park employees are trying to solve the mystery of an 132-year-old Winchester rifle found in the park.
The rifle was found and recovered by park archaeologists in November, according to the Great Basin National Park Facebook page. (https://www.facebook.com/GreatBasinNPS) The firearm was found leaning against a tree in a remote rocky outcrop. Park officials believe the rifle hadn’t been located sooner because the weathered, cracked wood stock and brown rusted barrel blended into the juniper tree.
The rifle was identified as a model 1873 Winchester repeating rifle because of the distinct engraving on the mechanism of “Model 1873,” according to the national park. The serial number on the firearm corresponds with manufacture and shipping records dating to 1882, held at the Center for the West Cody Firearms Museum in Cody, Wyoming. However, the records don’t indicate who purchased the rifle or where it was shipped to, the national park said.
Between 1873 and 1916, 720,610 model 1873 rifles were manufactured and in 1882 alone, more than 25,000 were made, according to the national park. The rifles sold for around $50 when they were first produced, then sold for $25 in 1882 when they became more popular. The model 1873 Winchester became known as “everyman’s” rifle, the national park said.
Great Basin National Park officials are researching newspaper archives and family histories to learn more about the rifle they discovered. The rifle was transported to a conservatory so the wood can be stabilized and to prevent further deterioration. When it is returned to the park, it will be displayed as part of the Great Basin National Park 30th birthday celebration and the National Park Service centennial celebration.
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[JSnover]

How slowly do juniper trees grow? Hard to believe it was leaning against that same tree more than 100 years ago.
Either way it's a pretty good story.

[John Allen]

This never happens to me. I could only wish.

[Eddie17]

Tree would of over grown to some extent, if had been there for a number of years!

[doc1876]

Butch left it there on one of his cattle runs

[joatmon]

My former BIL found a model 94 win 30-30 leaned against a tree there was also a fifth of wild turkey (little left) laying with it, gun was pretty rusty.

Aaron

[Bzcraig]

Yup, it would be fun to find.

[runfiverun]

identified from the markings??? wth?
they couldn't tell just by looking at it?? [the everyman's rifle,, apparently a girl found it]
for gods sake they made a movie about the 73' [starring jimmy Stewart]

[Col4570]

Watched Winchester 73 in Black and white on the Telly yesterday.James Stewart,Steve Macnaly,Shelly Winters,Rock Hudson as an Indian,Tony Curtis in a small part as a Trooper.The actual Rifle in the movie was a delux model engraved.Enjoyed it again.A coincidence that the Story broke today on this site.

[10x]

The local museum has a double barrell ~ 32 gauge smooth bore double precussion found leaning against a tree. It was a higher end smooth bore made in london in the 1860s from the stampins on the rib. The stock (of uknown wood) has weathered to the point of being almost as light as hardwood and the butplatte and bottom 3" of the stock where it was resting in the dirt was rotted away completely.
No story on it but from the condition of the stock (hardwood takes 75 to 100 years to rot in our soil and climate) it was probably leaning against the tree for over 90 - 100 years.

[MT Gianni]

Few places have less rainfall and growth rates than GB Ntnl Park.

[Reg]

A old friend moved out here back in the late teens or early twentys and while breaking sod north of the Black Wolf plowed up a single action army pistol in very bad condition. He hadn't moved ten feet when he then dug up a 73 Winchester it also in bad shape. We had a lot of indian activity here from the early 60's ( 1860 ) on and it wasn't uncommon to find the remains of an encounter . I asked him if he found any bones and he said he looked but that was all he could find. It wasn't uncommon to lose a pistol out of one of the early holsters or even a rifle from a running horse but to lose both ??? He gave me the remains of the rifle and want to put it in a shadow box. Said he let his kids play with the pistol and it had been lost through the years.127415

Man---- if those old guns could have talked !!

[LUBEDUDE]

That's cool stuff!

[waksupi]

A old friend moved out here back in the late teens or early twentys and while breaking sod north of the Black Wolf plowed up a single action army pistol in very bad condition. He hadn't moved ten feet when he then dug up a 73 Winchester it also in bad shape. We had a lot of indian activity here from the early 60's ( 1860 ) on and it wasn't uncommon to find the remains of an encounter . I asked him if he found any bones and he said he looked but that was all he could find. It wasn't uncommon to lose a pistol out of one of the early holsters or even a rifle from a running horse but to lose both ??? He gave me the remains of the rifle and want to put it in a shadow box. Said he let his kids play with the pistol and it had been lost through the years.127415

Man---- if those old guns could have talked !!

That would have been a good place to use a metal detector. Bet the guy had SOMETHING in his pockets when he died.

[merlin101]

Very cool! I had a brother in law (now passed)that was hunting on public land years ago and as the sun came up he looked around and swore that 'branch' looked just like a gun leaning against a tree, after a couple hours of this he got up and wondered over and sure nuff there's a Franchi 12 ga. with one shell missing leaning there not far from a frozen gut pile.
He placed an ad in the local paper but no one ever ID'd the gun, his son now has it.

[Reg]

That would have been a good place to use a metal detector. Bet the guy had SOMETHING in his pockets when he died.
When I talked with Kelsy it was in the mid 60's and he found them in the late teens to early 20's he couldn't remember exactly when. He as getting real long in the tooth and didn't last much longer. We did drive out in the field, now in wheat, and he couldn't remember exactly where he found them but he thinks we were close. Did go back with a metal detector a few years later and walked quite an area but found nothing. It was right at the edge of a cliff and a big flood came through in the mid 30's and there is a good chance it washed out the area.
It might be just me, but have you ever been to a place where there was loss of life in a very savage manor ? Little Big Horn, The Alamo, Gettysburg, Andersonville ? There is something about a feeling some people get in such places. I get this same feeling holding the remains of that old rifle. Crazy I guess.

[Chill Wills]

How slowly do juniper trees grow? Hard to believe it was leaning against that same tree more than 100 years ago. Either way it's a pretty good story.
"Tree would of over grown to some extent, if had been there for a number of years!"


_____________________________________________

If you are not from the American West or South West:
These Juniper "trees" are not like trees you are used to. If you are not from the area of the country that has "PJ" forests (PJ stands for Pinion / Juniper forest) your logic makes good sense; the tree should grew around the rifle. BUT, that is not the case....

Juniper are always much older than there size and presentation would indicate. Juniper can commonly live many hundreds of years and some over a thousand years. In your lifetime, they do not appear to change or grow. Their bark runs up/down is in long strips and is shaggy looking. Often the trees are missing bark on some sides of their short trunks and the weathered wood does not rot or decompose.

It is likely that the rifle was placed into one of those bark-less places because the weathered wood in those areas have a lot of vertical ribbing that acts like a natural rifle rack with the barrel muzzle captured in one of the grooves.

Some people harvest and sculpt small juniper into Bonsai.

PJ forests are great late season hunting locations for Mule Deer and Elk after they move out of the high country.

[CastingFool]

A friend told me he had been hunting on state land in Michigan once and found a 30-30 leaning against a tree. It was in good shape, and was loaded. He just slung it on his shoulder and continued hunting. Sometime later, he came across a young man that had been hunting, but he was obviously distraught. My friend said the young man asked him if perhaps he had found a rifle. My friend unslung the rifle and asked "this one?" the young man was overjoyed! Apparently, he had leaned the rifle against the tree, went around the tree to pee, somehow got disoriented and couldn't locate the rifle.

[waksupi]

When I talked with Kelsy it was in the mid 60's and he found them in the late teens to early 20's he couldn't remember exactly when. He as getting real long in the tooth and didn't last much longer. We did drive out in the field, now in wheat, and he couldn't remember exactly where he found them but he thinks we were close. Did go back with a metal detector a few years later and walked quite an area but found nothing. It was right at the edge of a cliff and a big flood came through in the mid 30's and there is a good chance it washed out the area.
It might be just me, but have you ever been to a place where there was loss of life in a very savage manor ? Little Big Horn, The Alamo, Gettysburg, Andersonville ? There is something about a feeling some people get in such places. I get this same feeling holding the remains of that old rifle. Crazy I guess.

Yep. The Little Bighorn creeps me out, along with the Baker massacre site of Heavy Runner's band.

[ballistim]

Watched Winchester 73 in Black and white on the Telly yesterday.James Stewart,Steve Macnaly,Shelly Winters,Rock Hudson as an Indian,Tony Curtis in a small part as a Trooper.The actual Rifle in the movie was a delux model engraved.Enjoyed it again.A coincidence that the Story broke today on this site.

Great movie, a classic. Local band going by the name of Dutch Henry named their first album "Winchester '73", so both band & album name were a tribute to the movie. "On A Dime" was a song from that release that was the theme song for the "Gettin' Close" TV hunting show, great guitar player in the band named Greg Miller.

[10x]

Yep. The Little Bighorn creeps me out, along with the Baker massacre site of Heavy Runner's band.

I got the same creepy feeling touring some second Boer War battlefields in South Africa.
spioenkop was well maintained and a beautiful site. You could see for 30 to 50 miles in all directions. The trenches where 500 British soldiers died were turned into graves and they were buried where they lay.
The trench/cemetary was not a pleasant or comfortable place to walk through despite it being 2:00pm on a very sunny day.

http://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spioenkop_Battlefield.jpg

[MT Gianni]

It might be just me, but have you ever been to a place where there was loss of life in a very savage manor ? Little Big Horn, The Alamo, Gettysburg, Andersonville ? There is something about a feeling some people get in such places. I get this same feeling holding the remains of that old rifle. Crazy I guess.


Had a friend who's child freaked out every time they went through Hellgate Canyon E of Missoula. It was a major killing field for tribes praying on those returning from the central MT feedbasket where they would refuel on hides and jerked meat. Kid freaked long before the parents knew of the story.

[Bad Water Bill]

Been there felt that.

NEVER went against that feeling.

[MUSTANG]

Chill Wills (http://castboolits.gunloads.com/member.php?20726-Chill-Wills) makes a good point on the slow growth of Pinon, Juniper, and Bristle Cone Pines in the Nevada and California (sierra) Mountain areas. Some of the Bristle Cone pines in the Great Basin and Sierras are more than 5000 years old, and yet fairly small when compared to trees such as the Red Woods.

[catmandu]

My BIL plowed up a black powder rifle barrel that was real old in lower Arkansas.

[TXGunNut]

Little Big Horn certainly has an odd, dark vibe to it. I get a totally different feeling at Vicksburg, not unpleasant at all but you can sure feel the history there.

[quilbilly]

How slowly do juniper trees grow? Hard to believe it was leaning against that same tree more than 100 years ago.
Either way it's a pretty good story.Keep in mind this is high desert of 7-8000 feet where nearby (only a couple miles) trees (bristlecone pines) only 15 feet tall are 5000 years old and I still recognize junipers I saw 20 years ago as saplings that are still only 3 feet tall. Doesn't surprise me at all. Given the condition of the wood and my observation of wood weathering in nearby ghost towns of the 1860's, it was probably left by hunter 80 years ago and got lost when he dragged a big deer out.

[osteodoc08]

Mom is a big believer in spirits and ghosts. There are times when I really wonder if she's right. There are times you just get that vibe you can't shake. Like that of a tortured soul staring at you. Brrrrrr. Chills down the spine.

i went to undergrad at GSW in Americus, GA. I went to Andersonville quite a few times. Sometimes it was a peaceful feeling when I had a chance to sit under the trees and hear the birds, but there were times I felt rather uncomfortable and had to leave. Hard to explain I guess.

[Bad Water Bill]

My wife and I drove many miles to see "THE HOLE IN THE WALL" that I had read so much about.

We reached the turn off but I could not make the car go there as I suddenly got "that feeling" and we both respected it.

OH well there were still maby other sights to see.

Can you explain why a person that has climbed many of The Alps should get "That feeling" about simply climbing a 100 foot ladder to the top of a fire tower.

Yes we both respected it and never questioned it.

[Reg]

Have felt "that" feeling numerous times but only where there was serious loss of life.
Andersonville was the worst. We had to leave early.
Little Big Horn, it's there too but not so strong. Want to make it to Reno's Crossing, will be interesting if it is there as well. Try to explain it to someone who has never experienced it and they think you are a nut case. But then again I believe in dowsing too. Must be something in the family !!!

[Bazoo]

I wonder if the feeling at the little big horn would be the same for an Indian. I've never been, but i surmise it would be a deep feeling of anger and resentment towards the loss of an entire culture.

[Col4570]

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9mSs2Kvt7hUtDcAkEZLBQx.;_ylu=X3oDMTByZWJ1c20 3BHNlYwNzcgRwb3MDMgRjb2xvA2lyMgR2dGlkAw--/RV=2/RE=1421420591/RO=10/RU=http%3a%2f%2fwww.bbc.co.uk%2fhistory%2fscottish history%2funion%2ftrails_union_glencoe.shtml/RK=0/RS=QKwLO18mXQLfcbuFPlihSfLZj.c-

Glencoe in Scotland on certain days has that brooding sense of awfull deeds.

[waksupi]

I wonder if the feeling at the little big horn would be the same for an Indian. I've never been, but i surmise it would be a deep feeling of anger and resentment towards the loss of an entire culture.

Maybe not. It's on the Crow Rez, and they were scouts for Custer.

[Col4570]

Glencoe in Scotland has that brooding feeling for me.

[bobthenailer]

In American Handgunner magazine in the Jan / Feb 2014 issue had a article on the "Cody Dug Up Gun Museum", featuring like guns found out in the wild !

Pages 56-61, with lots of pictures, well worth a look! You may be able to pull this up online?

[oldred]

Sounds strange that someone would forget their rifle but a few years ago that very thing happened to a friend of mine (it really was someone else and not me!) who got excited at killing his first deer. This man is no kid being in his fifties and a high school math teacher and is an avid outdoors man, mostly fishing however, and has hunted small game almost all his life. After dressing that buck and dragging it to his truck he headed for home stopping several times on the way without noticing his Browning 30-06 rifle was missing, it was not until well after arriving home that he realized he didn't have the rifle. At first he thought it had been stolen from his truck at one of the stops but since he always locks the truck that didn't make much sense still he just couldn't believe he had simply forgotten the rifle and left it in the woods. Since it was late in the day and almost dark he waited until the next morning to go back to the kill site and sure enough there it was still leaning against the brush pile just like he left it!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The age of the gun is clear, but it might still have been there only a few years. If I wanted something a shade quieter than a modern high power rifle, my .32-40 1894 would be a pretty fair choice. All the ways in which firearms are used can provide moments when clear judgement goes out of the window. Being a national park, the owner may have seen a warden, and decided he had better turn into an innocent walker - and it can be hard to find your way back to an exact location in forest country, if you don't think to look behind you and remember landmarks.

I've had that eery feeling several times, sometimes when there was no possibility of prior knowledge. Twice were Paris. Once was in the centre of the terrace wall at the Palais de Chaillot, the classic spot for photos of the Eiffel Tower. Only years later did I see in film that is was where Hitler and Goering stood in triumph. But no bloodshed had occurred there. Another was in a street, and only then did I notice quite a bit of damage in the stonework of a church. I asked a newspaper seller if it was from the liberation in 1945, but it was from the last moments of the French Revolution. A mob was marching to depose the government, and they asked an unknown 26-year-old General Bonaparte, who stationed his cannon at that street corner.

In Glentrool in Scotland there is a battlefield of 1307, the first King Robert Bruce won in his renewal of Wallace's war of independence, and just at that vital and dangerous stage where a guerilla leader must start to fight great battles. They were far outnumbered by an English army marching along the north side of the loch, so the showed a panic party well down the north side. Part of the undisciplined enemy force dashed ahead, through the marsh and stream at the end of the loch, and were taken by surprise on the precipitous hillside beyond. Most British battlefields took place on carefully chosen good ground, and have been built over or obliterated by centuries of ploughing. But that one, without even a proper path between hillside and water, hasn't changed at all, and you know it is where you are, within feet rather than hards. That would be an interesting place to use an underwater metal detector.

Possibly the strongest such feeling of all, though, came when my train from Amsterdam to Paris was entering a small French town, just like a hundred others. It was only in the station that I saw the name Le Cateau. It was where a corps of the British Expeditionary Force of 1914 had been hard pressed for so long, on the march, that they had to either fight greatly superior odds or be picked up piecemeal as stragglers. In material terms it was no victory, but got their rest, made it off the field in good spirits, and were followed up less closely than by the Germans than they had been before.

I certainly don't believe in ghosts with their heads tucked under their arms, or looking as they did in life. Imagination does that. But who could have imagined that we could half-hear radio music, because a dental filling can form a crude radio crystal? I can't dismiss the possibility that something which can cause unaccountable feelings may linger on the scene of traumatic events.

[w30wcf]

Based on hard wood deterioration after harvesting and laying in the elements, I'm thinking that it was there for around 20 years or so.

w30wcf

[Bazoo]

Honestly, I think it to have been there over 100 years. The folks from that area should know best about the climate.

[Bad Water Bill]

How long does it take for critters to start going after the salt from your hands that has been rubbed into the wood?

[TXGunNut]

Odd, no one has mentioned the Tower of London. I toured it as a kid and don't recall any odd feelings but have heard other reports to the contrary.

[Chill Wills]

Being a national park, the owner may have seen a warden, and decided he had better turn into an innocent walker - and it can be hard to find your way back to an exact location in forest country, if you don't think to look behind you and remember landmarks.

This area was just a wild place when the rifle was left there. National Park status and rangers did not happen for about 100 years. It was sometime in the mid 80's (1980's) that the park came to be. Then, as today, much of the American west was wide open to roam and hunt.

This is a good story and makes the mind wonder. Endless possibility. We will likely never know much; just like a lot of what happened west of the Mississippi in the opening of the West. Lots of mystery.
The town, Rifle, Colorado was so named for the creek, Rifle Creek in turn named for the Rifle found leaning up against a tree near the creek. This rifle was left years before the town and railroad came in and the era when the Ute were still free.

I do not agree that the rifle is recently lost, 20 years or so. Eastern climate is easy on human skin and hard on wood left out but arid western climate plays by different rules. Left out, humans look very old for their years and barn wood holds up remarkable well unpainted.
Average humidity below 30 percent makes the difference just as it does shooting black powder dirty ( :kidding::hijack::evil:) in the eastern US results are very different then the very dry west. Sorry, that was just to good to pass up!

[quilbilly]

This area was just a wild place when the rifle was left there. National Park status and rangers did not happen for about 100 years. It was sometime in the mid 80's (1980's) that the park came to be. Then, as today, much of the American west was wide open to roam and hunt.

This is a good story and makes the mind wonder. Endless possibility. We will likely never know much; just like a lot of what happened west of the Mississippi in the opening of the West. Lots of mystery.
The town, Rifle, Colorado was so named for the creek, Rifle Creek in turn named for the Rifle found leaning up against a tree near the creek. This rifle was left years before the town and railroad came in and the era when the Ute were still free.

I do not agree that the rifle is recently lost, 20 years or so. Eastern climate is easy on human skin and hard on wool left out but arid western climate plays by different rules. Left out, humans look very old for their years and barn wood holds up remarkable well unpainted.
Average humidity below 30 percent makes the difference just as it does shooting black powder dirty ( :kidding::hijack::evil:) in the eastern US results are very different then the very dry west. Sorry, that was just to good to pass up! 30% would be a very humid day there for about 10 months a year. Humidity under 10% is more common and at that altitude (above 7000 feet which is the juniper/pinyon zone in GBNP), the air sucks water out of you with a straw. I have hunted during muzzleloader season in the area (one mountain range over) during September and it often takes 2 gallons or more per day just to stay even.

[Certaindeaf]

It's like they're saying they found some great mystery/treasure. Yes, as has been said a few times, it's quite dry there and they'd been making those artifacts for some time. Coulda been "left" there yesterday big whoop?
Not really like finding old king "bowspine" like they did a few years ago.

[waksupi]

I agree on the age. My outhouse is 27 years old, and hardly shows any weathering, due to the low humidity here in the west.

[Bad Water Bill]

I agree on the age. My outhouse is 27 years old, and hardly shows any weathering, due to the low humidity here in the west.

Please tell us just what you used for an outhouse the first 100 years you lived there?[smilie=1:

[Multigunner]

One of my old books has images of an 1866 Winchester found buried muzzle down with only the butt plate showing. The guy who found it was amazed by its well preserved condition and had it restored with full coverage engraving plated in gold with Ivory stock and fore end. A true master piece.
I suspect this was a rifle buried by an indian who was going to a reservation and wanted to be able to dig it up again if he decided to jump fence.

My older brother had an 1851 Colt a farmer had turned up with a plow many years earlier. The farmer had given it to my brother's son.
The pistol is in a remarkable state of preservation. It could be fired as it is now. I cleaned remaining deposits form the pistol and stripped and cleaned it up. perhaps 60-70% of the finish was intact with bare steel turned nearly black by some chemical action of the soil. The wooden grips were completely intact.
The only damage was scarring of the cylinder where the farmer had tried to break free the cylinder with a pipe wrench and a broken pawl where he'd been turning the cylinder the wrong way.

I suspect the revolver had been secreted under an out building and that building had kept the soil dry till the building rotted away and the soil was plowed up.
Since it was unloaded there was no powder in the chambers to draw moisture and no copper caps to corode the nipples.
The mainspring was stronger than the springs of modern replicas I've owned.

I've been asked to refinish several rifles found abandoned in the woods.

[JSnover]

Ok, I'm a believer now. A couple of posts about the stock jogged my memory. Behind my moms place was a pile of logs cut before I was born. The sawmill and its owners were long gone. It took more than fifty years for that wood to rot back into the ground and this was in Michigan
Imagine that... A gun left to its own devices, unsupervised for 100+ years... And it didn't kill anyone.

[DLCTEX]

Bad Water Bill, prior to the outhouse he used a bush.

[Bad Water Bill]

So you know about that OLD rascal to.:smile:

[Clay M]

Honestly, I think it to have been there over 100 years. The folks from that area should know best about the climate.

Yeah that gun had been there a long time.The owner probably had a camp nearby and was probably killed ..

[Certaindeaf]

I think Liver eating Johnson had the best story though.. cold dead fingers indeed.

[Clay M]

I think the fact that it is a 73 locks it in to a certain time frame.Most went to the 86 and the 92 once they were available...The gun is very old indeed. Who knows the owner may have had a bad accident and never returned.. I love Zane Grey so I love to speculate..
Any way you slice it ..it is just cool..

[dakotashooter2]

One might also consider that its last owner was a Native American and when it ran out of ammo he simply had no use for it any more. A white man might drag around an empty gun but a NA probably wouldn't..........

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Bad Water Bill, prior to the outhouse he used a bush.

I wonder if you use the British saying, from the days when most people couldn't read innsigns, "Good wine needs no bush"?

I've spent many years of my life in Saudi Arabia, including the central area where humidity is extremely low, and as you would naturally expect, there are no forests. But exposed construction steel still rusts in the condensation that occurs at night.

[Clay M]

One might also consider that its last owner was a Native American and when it ran out of ammo he simply had no use for it any more. A white man might drag around an empty gun but a NA probably wouldn't..........

That or a packer/miner that ran out of ammo and figured he would come back and get the gun later.
I figure the gun was left there in the 80's or 90's .It is a fantastic find and I bet there are many more like it scattered around in the deep wilderness of our great country..