20 Lost Guns Every Territorial Prison Guard Carried That History Forgot

High on the tower of the Yuma Territorial Prison sat a battery gun that could fire hundreds of rounds a minute. It stopped a real prison break, then sat rusting in the desert for decades until almost no one remembered it was there. That gun was only the beginning. Before the American West was tamed, the men who guarded its most dangerous prisoners stood watch with a strange arsenal of surplus rifles, break-top revolvers, coach guns, and one monstrous crank-fed weapon mounted above the walls. These twenty guns kept order on the frontier's grimmest institutions, from the work gangs to the gallows. And when the territories became states and the old prisons went dark, nearly every one of them was retired, sold for scrap, or simply forgotten. This is the countdown of the twenty forgotten guns of the territorial prison guard, ranked from 20 to 1, ending with the tower gun that history left to rust. Every weapon, every date, and every prison in this video is drawn from documented historical sources, listed below. Which one would you have wanted on the wall if you drew the night shift in 1885? Tell us in the comments. If you enjoy forgotten frontier history, subscribe for a new story every week. ------------------------------------------------- SOURCES & FURTHER READING THE PRISONS Yuma Territorial Prison State Historic Park (Arizona State Parks, official) https://azstateparks.com/yuma-territo... Yuma Territorial Prison — Arizona Highways (archive) https://www.arizonahighways.com/ Yuma Territorial Prison — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuma_Te... Wyoming Territorial Prison State Historic Site — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming... Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorad... Minnesota Territorial Prison — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneso... GUARD ARMAMENT (documented) "Bucoda's Infamous Seatco Territorial Prison" — ThurstonTalk (Guards carried .44-40 Winchester rifles; photo credit Washington State Historical Society) https://www.thurstontalk.com/2017/10/... "Prison Life in the 1880s" — Petticoats & Pistols https://petticoatsandpistols.com/2012... "Model 1897 Prison Gun?" — Winchester Collector Forum (Discussion of pump/guard shotguns held by state penitentiaries) https://winchestercollector.org/forum... THE FIREARMS "Guns That Won the West: 150 Years of the Colt Single Action Army and the Winchester Model 1873" — Rock Island Auction https://www.rockislandauction.com/ria... Colt Single Action Army — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colt_Si... "The Smith & Wesson Schofield" — American Rifleman (NRA) https://www.americanrifleman.org/cont... Smith & Wesson Schofield Revolver — National Museum of American History (Smithsonian) https://americanhistory.si.edu/collec... .45 Schofield — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.45_Sch... "Colt's First Double Actions: The 1877 Lightning & Thunderer" — Forgotten Weapons https://www.forgottenweapons.com/colt... "The Model 1877 Double Action" — American Handgunner https://americanhandgunner.com/handgu... "Colt Lightning Strikes with Double Action" — Rock Island Auction https://www.rockislandauction.com/ria... Winchester Model 1887/1901 — Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winches... ------------------------------------------------- Note: This video is a work of historical documentary storytelling. Sources above are provided for reference and further reading. Some frontier records are incomplete; where details vary between sources, the strongest and most widely documented account was used.