On October 1, 2025, a new season of the popular history show, Gun Stories with Joe Mantegna, premiered on Outdoor Channel. Over its many seasons, the show has covered firearms from all corners of the world, but this episode focused on just one.
In November 2014, archaeologists at Great Basin National Park stumbled upon what would become one of the most compelling firearm discoveries in recent memory: a Winchester Model 1873 rifle, propped casually against a juniper tree. At first glance, it seemed almost staged, as if someone had leaned it there after a hunt and simply never returned. Yet this rifle had sat exposed to Nevada’s high desert elements, its weathered stock and rusted barrel camouflaged against the juniper, waiting to be rediscovered.
When park staff posted a photograph of the find on Facebook, they asked viewers, “Can you find the man-made object in this image?” The image went viral almost instantly. The “Forgotten Winchester,” as the press quickly dubbed it, became a cultural phenomenon. For me, then serving as Curator of the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the story was only just beginning.
The Model 1873 has often been called “The Gun That Won the West,” a phrase embedded in Winchester’s marketing since the post-World War I period. More than 720,000 of these rifles were produced between 1873 and 1919, making them one of the most iconic lever-action firearms of the American frontier. Yet this particular rifle’s condition, provenance, and unanswered questions set it apart from the thousands in museum and private collections.
When the National Park Service entrusted the rifle to us for evaluation and conservation, the first task was to ensure it was safe. Typically, a breechloading firearm would be examined for whether it was loaded by operating the action. However, this firearm was in such a state that it was not possible. So, we used another tactic to determine if it was loaded which we call the wooden dowel test. This is used often to check muzzleloading firearms. We ran a wooden dowel down the barrel to compare it with the length of the barrel. There was a discrepancy between the two leading us to believe that the firearm could be loaded or that there was some type of other build up or obstruction.
In an unconventional turn of events, my colleague Beverly Perkins, our conservator, and I, along with our curatorial assistant Dan Brumley, took the rifle to the local hospital for x-rays. The images showed that the rifle was not loaded, though the buttstock did contain a .44 WCF cartridge manufactured by Union Metallic Cartridge Company, which we later learned was consistent with headstamp markings between 1887 and 1911. In addition to the x-ray, other evaluation determined the stock had been cracked and repaired with a pin and the lifter – the mechanism that lifts a cartridge into the breech from the magazine – was removed, making this repeater effectively a single shot.
Conservation was delicate work. The stock was cracked and flaking, and the barrel was heavily corroded. To stabilize the wood, Perkins applied Klucel G, a cellulose-based adhesive, to prevent further deterioration. The goal was not to restore the rifle to its original condition, but to preserve its story, etched into every crack, rust spot, and grain of gray wood.
And yet, the rifle’s greatest impact lies not in the technical details of its conservation, but in the mystery it represents. Why would someone leave behind a rifle in the first place? Was it misplaced during a hunt? Forgotten after an unexpected event? Did its owner intend to return but never could? The absence of answers invites speculation, and perhaps that is why this firearm captured the public imagination so fully.
Once conservation work had finished, the Forgotten Winchester was on display at the Cody Firearms Museum, where it drew crowds of visitors who stood in quiet awe before it. In the exhibit, a tablet asked visitors to record what they thought happened to the rifle. While highly unlikely, the most popular response was, “Aliens.”
The rifle eventually returned to Great Basin National Park for its anniversary celebrations, and its story continues to resonate. It reminds us that firearms are not just machines, they are historical artifacts, witnesses to the lives of ordinary people whose stories often remain untold.