Rifle in a Tree – Part 2

In Part 1 of this post I told you the story of Zack, a Civil War veteran who went west in search of gold to pay off his family’s debts.  I told you some of his back story and I told you how he met his end.  And I told you about the Winchester Model 1873 rifle he left leaning against a juniper tree as he shuffled off this mortal coil.

But now I have to tell you that most of Part 1 was a lie.

Don’t be upset with me; in Part 2 I’m going to tell you the truth.

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The truth is someone really did leave an 1873 Winchester .44-40 leaning against a juniper tree, probably in the late 1880s or ‘90s. 

As it sat there, with passing seasons and years, juniper needles piled around the rifle’s buttstock and crumbled into compost.  The sun dried the wooden stock and forearm and rain washed away the finish someone had carefully applied at the factory in Connecticut.  The oil its owner had wiped onto the metal parts disappeared with wind, rain, and sun and what had been beautiful blued steel began to rust.

But the rifle withstood the elements pretty well, considering it stood out in them for many years.  It leaned against that juniper for, as best anyone can estimate it, about 130 years.

Yes, 130 years.

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The country where my work of fiction found its denouement is now, in real life, Nevada’s Great Basin National Park.  In 2014, the National Park Service was in the midst of a $280,000 fuels reduction project around Strawberry Creek Campground to prevent campers from setting off wildfires in the forest around it. As part of the project, the Park Service sent staff from their cultural resources office to search the project area for Native American artifacts or petroglyphs.

Archaeologist Eva Jensen was with a group searching an unexplored area when something caught her eye. 

Jensen said, “It was an ‘Oh, my gosh!’ moment. I sort of let out this exclamation – then I couldn’t say anything.  At first the staff thought I’d fallen off a cliff. It was just so unexpected that it took a little time for my mind to catch up.”

There, leaning against an old tree, was a rifle.  Despite its weathered wood and rusted metal, it was obviously a lever action weapon of the kind often associated with cowboys and western movies, and for a very good reason.  They were commonly used during the so-called, “taming of the west.”

Jensen circled the tree several times to be sure before she worked carefully to collect and preserve the obviously historic piece.  Despite the years of weathering, the factory’s marks on the tang were easily readable and identified it as a Winchester Model 1873. 

The model 1873 was manufactured by the Winchester Company, based in New Haven, Connecticut from 1873 to 1916, when they produced 720,000 of them.  New they often featured an oil-finished walnut stock, a blued-steel crescent butt plate and a 20-inch-long octagon barrel.  They sold for $50 originally, but the price was reduced to $25 during the ensuing recession.  The 1873 is often referred to as, “the gun that won the west.”

More study revealed the rifle’s serial number.  According to Winchester factory records, it was manufactured in 1882 and shipped the same year although, unfortunately, they have no record indicating where it was shipped or to whom it was sold.

Archaeologists searched the soil around the tree for related clues but found no body or other evidence of the weapon’s backstory.

After Jensen and others worked carefully to remove the rifle, it was transported to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming for analysis and conservation.  The researchers took it to a nearby hospital, believe it or not, where it was carefully X-rayed (under the patient name “Rifle”). 

There was no cartridge in the chamber and the weapon was unloaded, but the X-ray did reveal a single .44-40 cartridge in a hollow compartment in the buttstock.  That cartridge was manufactured by the Union Metallic Cartridge Company sometime between 1887 and 1911. The X-ray also showed that a crack in the stock had been repaired with metal pins.

It was found that, although the rifle was a lever action repeater, holding 15 rounds in the magazine when new, at some point before it was lost the lifter was removed so the gun was only able to handle one round at a time.  Thus, it was basically a single shot weapon.

At the Buffalo Bill Center, its weathered wood was stabilized with an alcohol solution.  Experts worked to preserve the firearm in, essentially, the state in which it was found, rather than restoring it to new condition.

Meanwhile, researchers continue to scour area historical records, newspapers, and personal diaries searching for clues to the reason why the rifle was left leaning on that tree.

The rifle is on display in the Lehman Caves visitor center in Great Basin National Park.  Hopefully, one day, the display can include the true history of its adventurous life.

Until then my story is as good as anybody’s.

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As archaeologist Eva Jensen pointed out, it’s entirely possible that the firearm might not have been discovered that day.  She said, “In archaeology, things happen when you have the right light,” she said. “We found the gun right after lunch, in the early afternoon. If the sun had been in a different spot, it might have been shaded and we would have never seen it.”

And if Jensen hadn’t had the right light to see the Winchester, it might have been lost for a lot longer, if not forever.  Two years after the weapon was found the Strawberry Fire swept through the area and consumed the juniper tree the rifle had been leaning against for 130 years.

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(above) This is the actual Winchester Model 1873 rifle as it was found, leaning against a cedar tree, where it had stood for about 130 years.

(below) The X-ray taken of the rifle, which shows the live cartridge in the stock.