Traditional Muzzleloading Association
The Center of Camp => People of the Times => Topic started by: Craig Tx on February 25, 2009, 07:23:41 AM
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From the Texas State Historical Association
Colt patents the "gun that won the West"
On this day in 1836, Samuel Colt, of Hartford, Connecticut, patented the Colt revolver.
This invention, along with windmills and barbed wire, brought order to the Great Plains. It was eventually produced in numerous models, the most famous being that of 1871.
In 1839 the Republic of Texas ordered 180 of the .36 caliber holster models for the Texas Navy.
The Texas Rangers gave the Colt revolver its reputation as a weapon ideally suited for mounted combat.
Frederick Law Olmsted remarked that "there were probably as many revolvers in Texas as there were males."
Craig
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Today is, in all likelihood, no different.
Those folks have a love for their Colt Six-Shooters like no other people.
During the many years I spent living in Texas, I discovered that Billy the Kid, and many of other really bad men, must have owned thousands upon thousands of Colt Revolvers.
The reason I say that is because as late as the 1980's every other Pawn Shop in Texas still had a Colt Single Six Revolver that once belonged to either Billy the Kid, or some other famous gunfighter.
It's kinda funny how just who that infamous Six-shooter belonged to was all dependent on the license plates of your car.
Uncle Russ...