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Many feel the early days of
Samuel Colt's legendary firearms company were the most glorious. Samuel
Colt was enchanted with the romance of the revolver, and each new model
was greeted with the excitement reserved for an event of extraordinary
importance. So it was in
1847 when Colt introduced a Goliath of a pistol--the historic Whitneyville
Walker model. The Walker pistols were manufactured during a short
production run in 1847.
The pistol was named after
Captain Samuel Hamilton Walker, a renowned national hero who had fought in
the Texas-Mexico wars. Captain Walker approached Samuel Colt, a leading
firearms designer, to create a pistol suitable for the Texas Rangers and
the U.S. Dragoons. The
new weapon was designed by both Colt and Walker, based on the Texas
Paterson revolver, but clearly improved. It proved to be a revolver of
such size, weight, and "heft" that Colt was reputed to have said, "It
would take a Texan to shoot it."
Walker wrote in 1847 that the gun was "as
effective as a common rifle at 100 yards and superior to a musket even at
200." Far more
powerful than the earlier Patersons, this gun quickly became legendary.
For those who could afford it, the Walker Colt was a symbol of strength,
authority and great financial means.
The Walker's instant success provided the key
to the mint for Samuel Colt. It gave Colt's struggling company the
financing it desperately needed to proceed with government and civilian
gun orders. Only 33 years old, the young inventor was well on his way to
becoming the first tycoon in America's gunmaking history.
Meanwhile, Captain Walker met a tragic end.
Fighting at the front in the Mexican War, he was killed by a lance in the
Battle of Juamantla in early October 1847. Fittingly, at the time of his
death the Captain was carrying a pair of Walker pistols--gifts from Colt
which had just arrived a few days before. |
