What a Paris-made firearm can tell us about Winchester’s founder

Oliver Winchester was the founder of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Cody Firearms Museum Curator Danny Michael said he’s “not often credited with being sort of a gun guy.”

“A lot of people portray him as sort of a calloused businessman and he made his money in shirts and firearms rose as an opportunity. The details didn’t matter and he just wanted to make money at that,” he said.

But Michael said a lever action shotgun, part of which was made in Paris, shows a different side to the man. The firearm has a walnut stock and aluminum side plates.

“He had several firearms. He wrote some letters about them. He’s included on a couple of patents about firearms. I think he took more of an interest and this gun shows that. He made some personal decisions with this firearm, the decoration, the level of craftsmanship involved,” he said.

This firearm and others from the Winchester collection were gifted to the Center of the West in the late 1980s and helped form what became the Cody Firearms Museum.