Posted on 01/15/2015 7:57:16 AM PST by Brother Cracker
GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK, Nev., -- Officials at Nevada's Great Basin National Park said they are trying to determine the origins of a 132-year-old rifle found leaning against a tree.
Park officials said the rifle, identified by an engraving on its side as a Model 1873 Winchester manufactured in 1882, was found blending in with the colors of a juniper tree in the park and seems to have been there for "many years."
The officials wrote on the park's Facebook page the rifle was "exposed to sun, wind, snow, and rain" and features "a cracked wood stock, weathered to grey" and the barrel has "rusted" to brown.
The park said researchers are seeking to answer questions including: "Who left the rifle? When and why it was leaned against the tree? And, why was it never retrieved?"
The Facebook page said the park will allow the public to view the rifle before it is sent off to conservators to undergo treatment and preserve it the way it was found. The rifle will return to the park to be displayed as part of the Great Basin National Park 30th Birthday and the National Park Service Centennial celebration.
I’ve done a bit of camping there both summer and winter. Extreme!
VERY Cool!!!!
However, barring there being some historic significance behind the rifle, pretty much it’s just a ‘wall hanger’. Very interesting story, which would make it serve that role well, as it will also be an excellent conversation piece.
Lol! there he is, with the rifle in question.
CC
interesting,,, I’ve somehow been losing my rifles in Big Basin State Park over the years....
Someone’s in big trouble for improper storage and no trigger lock.
I’m amazed the rifle was so free, still movable; I’ve seen where a rifle was left beside a tree and the tree grew completely around it. Granted this pine may not grow as fast as a Minnesota deciduous, but how small must it have been a century ago?
I wondered about that too. You’d think the Y in the tree would grow around the gun. I have several 50+ year old oak trees along my property border that have old barbed wire running almost thru the center of them.
In other words, the rifle was confiscated.
A bit of an update (with the usual YT production values; at least mixup98 is a gun guy).
Winchester 1873 Rifle Found In Nevada - What Happened To It?" [YouTube posted by mixup98]
A man was teaching his son to hunt. He wanted his young 13-year-old son to set up his shots carefully, not just pop off a bunch and hope for the best; so the father removed the rifle’s lifter so that the boy could only discharge one cartridge at a time. And so the man and his son went hunting, leaving the lifter back in the man’s one-room house to be put back into the rifle when the boy matured a bit and learned to hunt the right way.
One day, while out on a hunt with his father, the young man, being easily distracted as youth are wont to become, put his gun up against the tree and went exploring around. When his dad finally caught up with him, he asked him, “Where’s your rifle, son?” The boy said, “Oh, it’s over there up against the tree, Dad.” His father said, “Which tree? Where?” “Over there, Dad!” “I don’t see it, son. Let’s go get it.”
So they looked, but the boy forgot where exactly it was, and the trees all looked dauntingly similar. And the boy forgot how far and in which direction he had traveled. So the boy and his father looked all afternoon, but they eventually had to go home because Mama had a pot roast in the stove for supper.
They tried over the next few months to find that rifle, but they never did find it. Then, 132 years later, the rifle was found by a society that hates guns, loves sodomy and frowns upon fatherhood. The gun was happy to be found but went into a major depressive episode later because the free and wild society that offered so much promise of Liberty to Americans and the world was turned into a sniveling little European nanny state. The rifle pined for the day when he could finally go hunting with a free child and his loving father again, but he found that, like the Constitution that protected the boy’s freedom, he was put under glass and consigned to a slow spiritual death by cultural malaise and general apathy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
