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And we continue with our American stories.

And here to tell another great American story is our own Ashley Lubinsky,

a frequent contributor here at Our American Stories. He is the former co-host of Discovery Channel's

Master of Arms, the former curator in charge of the Cody Firearms Museum, and she's the co-founder

of the University of Wyoming College of Law's Firearms Museum, and she's the co-founder of the University of Wyoming College of Law's

Firearms Research Center.

Here's Ashland.

A lot of people know the name Winchester.

They know the name Winchester as the quote-unquote gun that won the West.

They know the name from any

Western movie that's ever been made since Buffalo Bill filmed some of his work. So the

Winchester name is so prominent that sometimes you forget that there are other people behind

the company name. And one of the people who was attributed with making Winchester

really what it was was a guy named Thomas Bennett. Now that's a name you probably don't recognize,

but he basically built the company into what it was. He went to Yale, very smart. He was a college

wrestler. So Thomas Bennett was a very

kind of big, stocky individual, and he was an avid sportsman and loved fishing, hunting, all of that stuff.

So you know, perfect fit for Winchester, right? And this is an really interesting part of his

backstory is that he's actually a first lieutenant in an African-American regiment

during the Civil War.

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