Bankrupt and Broke but Not Defeated

Samuel Colt was only sixteen years old in 1830 when he designed the first working model of the gun that would revolutionize firearms: the Colt revolver. It took him six years to obtain a patent and two years after that, he found a manufacturer.  But no one wanted the gun. The US didn’t even have cavalry yet, and ordinary people viewed the new pistol as an impractical oddity.

The Republic of Texas ordered 180 Colts for their Navy and another forty for their Army. But there’s no evidence that the guns were used. Until…

Around 1843, Captain Jack Hayes and his Texas Rangers discovered the firepower of the Colt revolver. At the battle of Walker Creek in 1844, Hayes and his Rangers, proved the worth of these revolutionary weapons. Caught in the open, Hayes and his fourteen men took on seventy-five Comanches. Their five-shooters vs. arrows, lances, and single-shot weapons, left twenty Comanche dead and thirty wounded and one Ranger dead and three wounded.

 Hayes and his band of Rangers were sold on the weapon, but meanwhile, Colt’s factory had filed for bankruptcy in 1842, and Colt was broke. His dreams for a six-shooter revolver and success seemed unreachable. His revolver had flaws, and no one appeared to see the value of his invention.

Then, in 1846, he heard from the distant frontier of Texas that someone had found a use for his gun. Excited, Colt wrote to one of the Rangers, Samuel Walker. Walker wrote back telling him that the revolver had made a world of difference in their battles with the Comanche, and he suggested improvements for the gun.

Shortly after that, the Mexican War started, and the Rangers volunteered to fight alongside the U.S. Army troops. The high command of the Army was amazed at the effectiveness of the Colt revolvers used by the Rangers, envisioning for the first time what a difference the weapon could make, especially in battles that took place on horseback.

The army contacted Colt and ordered 1,000. However, at this point, Cold didn’t have a factory, and he hadn’t made a gun in over five years. He didn’t even own one of his revolvers and had to advertise in the newspaper to try to find one. But he wasn’t about to turn down the order.

He persuaded his fellow inventor, Eli Whitney, to manufacture the weapon, and he contacted Samuel Walker, for ideas on how to make the gun the best that it could be. They made it heavier and more rugged, gave it a larger handle, lengthened the barrel, enlarged the caliper, and gave it a sixth chamber. From obscurity, the Walker-Colt became one of the most effective sidearms ever invented, and Colt became one of the wealthiest me of the 19^th century. And it all could have been lost if he’d given up in 1842 when all the evidence he could see said that he’d failed.

Source:

Gwynne, S.C. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the RIse and Fall of the Comanches. Scribner, 2010.