NV - 132-year-old Model 73 Winchester rifle found in Great Basin National Park

OkieGranny

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http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs...nd-in-national-park-draws-worldwide-attention

Archaeologists conducting a survey of the Great Basin National Park recently made a surprising discovery: one very old Model 73 Winchester. The .44-40 rifle was found unloaded, leaning up against a juniper tree with four or five inches of its stock buried in the ground.

"It looked like someone propped it up there, sat down to have their lunch and got up to walk off without it," Nichole Andler, Chief of Interpretation at the Nevada park, told the Washington Post. With its wood stock weathered to gray and its metal rusted, the rifle was difficult to spot against its surroundings, according to Andler. Soon, the "gun that won the west" was all over the internet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...e-found-propped-against-a-national-park-tree/

While the rifle’s back story remains a mystery, the history of the place offers some clues: Great Basin was primarily a mining site at the time, but could have also been home to grazing cattle and sheep. The gun may have also been the relic of game hunting in the area.

This particular model of Winchester rifle was quite popular at the time, so it wasn’t necessarily a rare and precious item for a person to leave behind. The year this particular rifle was made, 25,000 others were also manufactured. In fact, the prevalence of the gun may have contributed to a massive price drop, from costing $50 in 1873 to $25 in 1882...

Park staff are now combing through old newspaper articles and records to try and unearth any information as to how the rifle ended up against that tree.
 
Thats so cool.I love stuff like this.
 
Hey, that's mine! Been wondering where I left it. Now pass it over as I have to go to Sotheby's for a pre-auction estimate.
 
Hey, that's mine! Been wondering where I left it. Now pass it over as I have to go to Sotheby's for a pre-auction estimate.

I nailed it first! I collect them! ;)
 
Oh, you guys, I am such a history nerd. This story delights me. :)
 
Some stuff in today's DM I would't mind finding lying out in the wilderness (including the blood-stained glove and saw used by a field surgeon to amputate the leg of the Earl of Uxbridge).
 
Interesting story, but am I the only one who is skeptical? I guess that tree could be over a 100 years old, but if the rifle was there for over a hundred years the tree should have started to grow around the rifle. I have seen trees much younger then that, with things attached (chains, signs, etc.), that had grown right into the tree. I think that starts to happen after just a few years.

Either that or as the tree grew it should have pushed the rifle over. Then there would be the possibility of wild animals or the wind knocking the rifle over. Seems to me that it would be very unlikely that the gun could have remained in that same position undisturbed for over a 100 years.

Plus I think a rifle exposed to the elements like that would be a lot more deteriorated. So my best guess would be that the rifle was placed there in the last ten years, IMHO.
 

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