Theodore Roosevelt – The ExhaustNotes Blog

By Joe Berk

I haven’t been to the Autry Museum in Los Angeles since 2018 when I took the photos you see here. I’ll get out there in the next few months. It’s one of the great destinations in the Los Angeles area, and what makes the Autry even better for me is the extensive firearms display.

I found these photos when I was poking around a bit on an external hard drive. For this blog, I’m including only the Colts in the Autry Museum. I only photographed a few of firearms I saw there. The Autry had more Colts, as well as Winchesters and other firearms on display.

The photos were a challenge. Each of the guns you see here was behind glass, and the lighting was fairly dim in the firearms display area. I was using my D3300 Nikon with its standard 18-55mm lens, shooting at ISO settings of 800 to 3200. These are not conditions conducive to capturing good images. I did the best I could.

The sixgun you see in the photo above is an original Colt Walker, one of the one thousand guns Sam Colt manufactured for Sam Walker in 1847. The last original Walker I know of that sold went for a million bucks. We’ve mentioned the Colt Walker in an earlier ExNotes blog. I bought the Uberti reproduction; the reproduction Uberti Walkers sell for just over $500.

The Autry Museum firearms collection features several Colt black powder revolvers. In addition to the Walker up top, here are a two more I photographed. The first one is a .36 caliber 1851 Colt Navy that belonged to Wild Bill Hickok. The second is a .44 caliber 1860 Colt Army. It’s quite fancy and it probably belonged to somebody famous, but I don’t know who (and that gives me a good excuse to get back out to the Autry Museum).

As you might imagine in a museum dedicated to the American West (and one carrying the name of a famous cowboy star like Gene Autry), the Colt 1873 Single Action Army revolver is well represented in this collection.

One of the 1873 Single Action Army revolvers on display at the Autrey Museum belonged to Theodore Roosevelt. His initials are carved into the ivory grips.

There were also a few Colt double action revolvers:

In addition to the early Colt revolvers, there were three Colt Pythons:

This is a crop showing some of the engraving detail on the revolver above.

The Museum also displayed an engraved 1911 .45 Auto. This 1911 was manufactured by Colt and several other manufacturers (as is the case even today; Colt still makes the 1911 and so do many other companies). The 1911 shown here had the trigger guard cut away. The idea behind removing the trigger guard is that it allows getting off a shot more quickly. The modification is not something I’d want.

There was one more Colt I should mention: A Bulldog Gatling gun. Richard Jordan Gatling, the Gatling gun inventor, never operated his own factory. All U.S. Gatlings were manufactured by Colt in Hartford, Connecticut. They were also made under license in Russia military by the Orloff company.

Uberti replicas of the Colt Walker and the Colt 1873 Single Action Army.

We’ve done other blogs in the past on the Colt Walker and the Colt Single Action Army (including the two replica revolvers you see in the photo above), other Colt black powder revolvers, and variations of the Gatling gun. Those blogs are here. You might also want to pick up our book on the Gatling gun.

Never miss an ExNotes blog:

Don’t forget: Visit our advertisers!

Most of us have seen the 1977 movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It’s what we think of when we see Devils Tower (which I’ll get to in just a bit). Before I do, consider this question: Are there close encounters of the first, second, fourth, and fifth kind? The short answer is: Yes.

The concept of classifying suspected alien encounters came from a guy named Allen Hynek. Hynek defined the first three categories, and then two more were added. Here at ExhaustNotes, we try to formulate the questions you might have before you even know you have them, so we did. Here’s the answer to what has been keeping you up at night.

- Close Encounters of the First Kind: These are viewings of unidentified flying objects less than 500 feet away. They are relatively rare, like seeing a GS 1200 actually in the dirt.
- Close Encounters of the Second Kind: These involve unidentified flying objects with some sort of associated physical effect, like interference with your vehicle’s ignition or radio, animals reacting to a sensed alien presence, or an alien craft leaving impressions on the ground. They are things for which there simply is no earthly explanation. I think $1500 freight and setup charges on new motorcycles fall into this category.
- Close Encounters of the Third Kind: This is the one we all know about. It’s when you climb to the top of Devil’s Tower for an alien rock concert and laser show. Seriously, though, the people who write these descriptions say a close encounter of the third kind involves things like seeing a living being inside an unidentified flying object. In the motorcycling world, I guess it would be like waving at a Starbuck’s-bound GS rider and having him return the wave.
- Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind: This is when the aliens abduct you. I imagine it would be a lot like a free weekend at a posh resort, but you have to listen to the time-share pitch.
- Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: These involve direct communications between humans and aliens. These actually happen to me a lot, and they usually start with unsolicited cell phone calls for solar power, paying off student loans, extending car warranties, or contributing to a Hillary Clinton campaign. These people have to be from outer space. No Earthling would ever expect me to go for any of the above.

So there you have it. On to the topic of this blog, and that’s Devils Tower, Wyoming. It’s awesome, and if you haven’t made the trek it needs to be on your list.

I first visited Devils Tower when we toured South Dakota’s Black Hills and Mount Rushmore in nearby South Dakota. Devils Tower was a short 90 miles to the west, I’d seen the movie, and I had to see the place in person. It was worth the trip. Instantly recognizable, the dark tower climbs 867 feet above its surroundings. Eerie is not too strong an adjective. The thing just looks other-worldly, and attributing the divine, the supernatural, or an extraterrestrial vibe to Devils Tower is a natural reaction. No fewer than six Native American peoples, Steven Spielberg, and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt have done exactly that. I get it, and when you see Devils Tower in person, you will, too.

I also visited Devils Tower when we rode the RX3s through western America with a crew from China and Colombia (that’s what the video above is from). It’s in a good part of the country…Mt. Rushmore, the Black Hills, the Badlands, and more are in this area and the riding is awesome. If you ever do Sturgis, Devils Tower needs to be one of your stops, but it’s best to see this part of the world when the Sturgis Rally is not underway (there is such a thing as too many motorcycles, and the tattoos, open pipes, and body odor that goes with Sturgis gets old quickly).

One of the things that makes Devils Tower so dramatic is its distinctiveness; it just doesn’t look like it should be there. Even the experts can’t agree on how it came to be. The rock docs agree that it was formed by magma (molten rock) forcing itself up between other rocks; what they argue about is how this occurred. One camp holds that the formation was pushed upward by molten rock below, another that Devils Tower once was a larger structure worn down by erosion, and yet another feels the tower is the throat of an ancient volcano. To get geologic for a moment, it is a laccolithic butte (a wonderful term that could be applied to a few people I know) comprised of phonolite porphyry (dark-colored rock). Devils Tower is comprised of sharply-defined trapezoidal columns with four, five and sometimes seven sides. They look like they were machined, and in a sense, I guess they were.

The Lakota, Cheyenne, Crow, Arapaho, Shoshone and Kiowa Native Americans all treat Devils Tower and its surrounding regions as sacred ground. Theodore Roosevelt designated it the first U.S. national monument in 1906. Native American names for the monolith include mato tipila (bear lodge), the bear’s tipi, the bear’s home, the tree rock, and the great gray horn. An 1875 U.S. Army expedition misinterpreted one of the Native American names as Bad Gods Tower, and that became Devils Tower.

The Tower is visible from great distances — there’s no missing it or mistaking it for anything else — and the ride in provides varying perspectives. Once inside the National Park, you can walk to the base, you can take a hike around Devils Tower, or you can climb to the top. I’ve been there several times, and I think it’s one of our great destinations.

More Destinations are here.

Don’t miss anything. Sign up here for free!