End of an era

Sad:

The famous Winchester rifle glorified in American Westerns may have fired its last shot as a plant where it had been manufactured since 1866 closed its doors last week. One hundred eighty-six employees of the US Repeating Arms Company plant located in New Haven, Connecticut, were thanked for their work Friday, two days after the facility stopped all manufacturing activity, said Catherine Sullivan-DeCarlo, a spokeswoman for the city government.

She told AFP that the mayor’s office has been searching for an investor, who would take over the plant, but has to overcome several obstacles on the way to achieving this goal.

US Repeating Arms Company and its New Haven plant belong to Belgian manufacturer Herstal, which has purchased from US firm Olin the right to use the famous brand name.

“Herstal owns US Repeating Arms and Olin owns the license to the Winchester name so they own the brand name,” Sullivan-DeCarlo said. “We’ve been talking to different gun manufacturers, and at the same time the mayor has been talking to Olin about possibly keeping the name Winchester here for whoever comes in the factory,” she continued. “Because otherwise, our fear is that the Winchester name will end up overseas.”

That would be a rough turn for the celebrated lever-action 1873 gun that made rapid reloading and fire possible and helped conquer the West.

Local coverage of the factory shutdown here and here.

The Times of London pays tribute:

Emanuel Gomez remembers the day that the company bought tickets for all its workers to watch the John Wayne film Stagecoach.

It was a source of pride for everyone at the factory that made the movie star’s signature Winchester rifle. “You have all these action scenes and you see him shooting his Winchester – killing Indians, of course,” Mr Gomez, who spent 44 years at the plant, recalled.

But the iconic American firearm known as “The Gun that Won the West”, featured in so many Hollywood Westerns, is now riding off into the sunset for good.

Workers at the factory that produced the quintessential cowboy rifle for 140 years were laid off this week amid howls of protest from gun-lovers around the world, and the plant closed yesterday. “John Wayne and so many actors carried a Winchester: They didn’t say: ‘Hand me my rifle’. They said: ‘Hand me my Winchester’,” David Bichrest, the secretary of the Texas-based Winchester Arms Collectors Association, said.

“We have got 2,000 active members in this organisation. It runs from Australia to England to Belgium to France to Norway,” he said. “The whole fraternity is upset. There is a website called ‘Save Winchester’.”

…Local officials say that three companies – including Smith & Wesson – have shown interest in buying the factory if they can get hold of the name.

“The name is very important. That is why there is going to be a battle,” Denny Johnson, another Winchester worker, said. “If it does not say ‘Winchester, New Haven, Connecticut’, it’s not a real Winchester.”

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Flashback…

Stephen Hunter, WaPo: Out With A Bang