132-year-old rifle found leaning against tree in Nevada 'where it was left'

Telegraph ^

[Phillyred]

It was a moment frozen in time – an 1873 Winchester repeating rifle propped up against the trunk of a juniper tree exactly where its owner had left it over a hundred years ago. Eva Jensen, an archaeologist out scouring the hillsides of Nevada’s arid Snake Mountains for Native American artefacts, let out an involuntary cry of surprise when she stumbled across the find, and then fell into silence. “I recognised it instantly, but it takes your brain a little while to catch up,” she told The Telegraph. “The reality of it, I let out an exclamation and the rest of my staff thought I must have fallen off a cliff or something, because I just couldn’t say anything else after that," she said. The find was pure chance - the rusted barrel of the rifle just catching in a gleam of the late afternoon sun. Otherwise it was perfectly camouflaged, the walnut stock that once been a rich, burnished brown bleached grey and rendered indistinguishable from the juniper wood by a century of desiccating winds. From the first moment of the rifle’s discovery last November, Ms Jensen and her staff at the Great Basin National Park found their minds racing with speculation about the how the rusting repeater came to be abandoned in the hills. Related Articles Ship found beneath World Trade Centre built in 18th-century 31 Jul 2014 Human teeth found in statue of Christ 11 Aug 2014 “Everyone gathered round and the questions began right away,” recalled Ms Jensen. “Who would just leave their rifle? Why did they lean it against the tree, and what happened that they never took it back?”

[Nachoman]

Whatever the case, seeing a Winchester 1873 be destroyed by the elements is a crying shame.

[rey]

THis happened in SOuth Carolina years ago. Someone found a Civil War musket laying on top of a stone fence where it had lain for over 100 years.

We went to Tinian in the early ‘80s and found a couple Garands. Stocks were gone, but the actions worked, or maybe I should say were movable, once they were cleaned.

[Red Badger]

Rip Van Tinkle...............

[depressed in 06]

Why didn’t the bear take the gun?

Have you ever tasted gun?

[CrazyIvan]

“Why didn’t the bear take the gun?”

You're trolling for a “right to arm bears” joke, right?

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Rusted, 132-year-old Winchester rifle found against tree in Nevada national park

	01/15/2015 12:27:04 PM PST · by servo1969 · 38 replies Foxnews.com ^ | 1-15-2015 | Fox News The story of how it got there may never be known, but a rusting 132-year-old Winchester rifle -- known in U.S. lore as "the gun that won the West" -- was recently found resting against a juniper tree in a Nevada national park. The gun, its stock split, gray and faded like driftwood, and its steel barrel rusted brown, blended in perfectly against the tree in a remote part of the Great Basin National Park until a National Parks Service employee spotted it. “The rifle, exposed for all those years to sun, wind, snow and rain, was found leaning against...
Mystery 132-year-old rifle found in national park
	01/15/2015 7:57:16 AM PST · by Brother Cracker · 29 replies Odd_News ^ | Jan. 14, 2015 | Ben Hooper 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"...
The mystery of the 132-year-old Winchester rifle found propped against a national park tree
	01/15/2015 6:23:25 AM PST · by NowApproachingMidnight · 68 replies Post ^ | 1/14/15 | Elahe Izadi Archaeologists conducting surveys in Nevada’s Great Basin National Park came upon a gun frozen in time: a .44-40 Winchester rifle manufactured in 1882. It was propped up against a juniper tree.
132 Year-old Winchester rifle found against a tree at Great Basin National Park
	01/14/2015 6:40:49 PM PST · by jazusamo · 127 replies The Washington Times ^ | January 14, 2015 | Douglas Ernst Archaeologists traversing the Great Basin National Park in Nevada came across an interesting find: a 132-year-old Winchester Model 1873 repeating rifle. The Facebook page for Great Basin National Park said in a post last week that researchers found the rifle, known as “the gun that won the West,” leaning up against a tree. “The 132 year-old rifle, exposed to sun, wind, snow, and rain was found leaning against a tree in the park. The cracked wood stock, weathered to grey, and the brown rusted barrel blended into the colors of the old juniper tree in a remote rocky outcrop, keeping...

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[Fido969]

I think that’s it - that tree doesn’t look 100 years old, and would have grown around the gun.

[PJ-Comix]

Check the rifle stock for any DNA evidence of Lucas McCain.

[blueplum]

Timmy fell down the well and Granddad, who had leaned his gun up against a tree as he sat down to rest, jumped up to follow Lassie, leaving his gun behind.

[Paladin2]

"That’s it!"

A Hundred Yards over the Rim.......

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

Sort of interesting to contemplate the story and imagine how it got there.

It lay on the ground for 75 years. 50 years ago a juniper started growing. A branch picked up the rifle, and here we are.

World War II Equipment Swallowed by Trees in Russia.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Trees can grow extremely slowly in the west. There's a guy who takes core samples of trees in the Sandias and dates them, then seals up the hole and places a medallion with an event that occured when the tree first germinated. This one (I've seen a number of them) is less than 2 feet in diameter. And it's a Ponderosa pine, which grows faster than many of the Junipers.

[TangoLimaSierra]

'where it was left'

Kinda like when someone says "I heard him speak before he died."

[The KG9 Kid]

Desert scrub grows very slowly, but Junipers grow more quickly compared to the rest... Er, I think.

I'm just saying that rifle would look just as weatherbeaten in less than 40 years as it does now, judging by the furniture. I've seen dilapidated fences all over my local part of Nevada in that shape that I know aren't more than 20 years old. Winter snow and searing Summer heat thrashes exposed woodcut like you can surely appreciate.

... Come to think of it, I have a wood plank fence on my property that's only 8 years old that would look just like that rifle stock in a few more years if I hadn't have sprayed it down good with boiled Linseed oil. I've had to repair that fence three times already. Nails are blackened and loose everywhere down the fence line.

I would like to point out that rifle could easily have never left that spot -- standing or not -- in over 100 years despite whether it's true or not that it had actually been there that long: I'm absolutely certain there's parts of my state that hasn't had a human footstep nearby since the last Pleistocene giant armadillo hunters moved through there 145,000 or more years ago during the last Ice Age.

(On that note, I met a fellow Nevadan at a Safari Club meet in Reno who found a big flint spearhead out in the local desert, ultimately thinking it was from one of the local Indian tribes. A paleontologist at UNR took one look at it and said it's easily 100,000+ years old.)

That area where the rifle was found is actually one of the prime Elk hunting zones that big game hunters pray to get assigned a permit tag for in the yearly NDOW lottery. I'm betting that's lots more like what the story is behind that rifle being left there, rather than the notion it was forgotten there over 100 years ago by a prospector: You drive off leaving gear behind and once you get a half mile away from where you were you'll never find your way back to the spot you were in. At least in the days before GPS that is.

[fella]

" You're trolling for a “right to arm bears” joke, right?"

Is that a Jasper Fford reference?

[centurion316]

It would be easy to rant about double postings on this story, but the examples that you cite all have different headlines and different sources, not that folks bother to search anymore. Nor does anyone bother to read the articles, in fact that has become bad form. See the headline or the excerpt and weigh right in with your profound 140 character opinion.

I fear that this is what happens when web sites go off to die.

[Mat_Helm]

Froze to death or died of natural causes, but the yotes or other critters took what was left. Could have been there 100 years, 75, 50, or who knows but starting around 1960 that rifle would have been a high dollar collectors rifle and nobody's going to leave that behind or forget about it.

Wonder if it was still loaded or empty? Were there any empty cases left around it? What caliber 44-40 or 38 -40?

It is a fun mystery to stumble upon. I have found old knives and bottles in the high Sierra's above 10,000 ft. elevation and pieces of aircraft from crash sites, but a Win 1873 would have been an epic find.

[freedomfiter2]

The tree would have grown around the barrel in less than 20 years.

[panaxanax]

“...should have been completely destroyed.”

Maybe not. It’s a very dry out there.

If loaded, the ammo might provide us with a lot of clues.

[jocon307]

“I saw a Twilight Zone like that over the holidays.”

Yes, yes, I know that episode. I’m actually getting chills right now!

This is like that!