B (17:41)
The hawk and rifle. When Lewis and Clark came back in 1806, they encouraged the fur trade that would happen sometime hence by saying there was a fortune of beaver up on the. The. The headwaters of the Missouri River. But they also said that their. Their firearms are absolutely inadequate for big game. So that's 1806. 1822. No, 1818. Two boys walk into town. James Lakeonen, an inventor with some bucks and a guy by the name of Jake Hawken who had a famous father in the colonial period. By 1822 they had invented the first firearm, the first big game rifle designed for the west. You could say designed for the survival of the West. And basically without getting into it too much, they had a very heavy barrel in which they could stuff a lot of powder and it was easy to load, very accurate. But they could down a buffalo at 200 yards with a crosswind. If you ever come out of a crosswind, we're talking keep this is the flags blowing straight out, right? Boom, down she goes. And if you got a buffalo, you had a half billion buffalo on the prairie, then you could stay alive. Okay, you could. So anyhow, they developed this rifle and that there's a limited audience for it. In, in, in, in that 1822, two of the largest events, two of the most important events that would change the west forever took place. The opening of the Santa Fe trail with, with Mexico and Santa Fe and the American fur trade. They were going after that bunch of beaver that, that Lewis and Clark was talking about. Anyhow, long story short, they, they had that gun available and ready to go for that period, but they had only X number of people. But over the next period of time from the period, excuse me, the time that they were in business from let's say 1820 to 1854, the first generation of rifles are missing. That first generation were flintlocks and we have one down here. But it was an ignition system. It was the technology of the day. And then they can that for percussion ignition. Enter a very interesting story. So Jim Beckwourth, mountain man, entered the Rocky Mountain fur trade in 1824 with Henry and Ashley. He had just come out of the Fever river country, had a pocket full of money. St. Louis knew him because he and his first job was a blacksmith by the name of Kasner. And they got in it and hammers and anvils were flying for pretty stout boy. But so we know for a fact that Jim had the mode of means and opportunity to buy a hawken. Okay, so we fast forward so history happens. Winchester. The Winchester rifle becomes the gun that won the West. The Colt developed a pistol that made you and I equal even your size. But it made us equal. But the Hawking, the first gun designed for the west was gone. It was forgotten. So then there was a. In the 1960s and this would follow the whole entire West Was rediscovered through their artifacts, their art in their literature. It was outstanding. And during that period of time, both mountain man, because of the literature and the rifle he carried, the Hawken became almost like the Excalibur that won the West. So I. I was really familiar with the hawk and rifle during that period. Anyhow, okay, fast story, fast story short or whatever. 40 years later, I'm tripping through a 6000 gun show in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I look off. Well, first of all, I couldn't never afford a Hawking. And I couldn't even afford a reproduction of Hawken during those days. But I look off and there's a Hawkins rifle sitting on a big old pack saddle. I mean, I almost got the big one. And first of all, Hawkins don't show up at gun shows. They're too expensive. And they go from dealer to dealer without ever. They don't need to come. So I almost got to it. It was 40 yards away. It was three rows of table, two rows over, and two guys were on the gun. I go, oh, man. And I could hear him talking. And they put the gun down. When I got up on it, my Hawkin had disappeared. It didn't have the commercial stamp that was on the barrel that all the percussion and for the most part, but it was almost five feet long. It was 13 pounds, all iron mounted.56 caliber. It was awes.
