Cheyenne firearms historian Evan Green sticks to the facts -- and knows when to speculate

Dec. 16—There's can be a fine line between fact and fiction.

Evan Green knows where to draw that line.

Green, 79, has been volunteering at the Wyoming State Museum in some capacity since 2015, but for the last several years, he's been working as the museum's resident firearm historian. Though this, too, is a volunteer position, Green arrives at roughly 10 a.m. every weekday to analyze, research and catalogue the roughly 400 collected firearms in his small workspace on the second floor of the Barrett Building.

"It was 2018 who I was invited to look over the collection," Green said on Thursday afternoon at the museum. "When I started, I didn't really do anything extensive, just correcting minor things. As I got more and more involved in it, the staff started to trust me that I wasn't going to screw up their database or their collections."

With a little help from Google and other sources, Green has learned to identify when and where a gun was made by referencing the serial number, patent and traits of a weapon. The majority of the time, that's all he needs to determine the basic background of the firearm — how it might have made its way to Wyoming, and who might have used it.

Manufacturers like Remington Arms, Marlin Firearms and Springfield Armory, for example, blocked out serial numbers by quarter, so Green can calculate down to the month that a rifle was produced. Other times, it's a matter of analyzing the mechanics, like whether a pistol utilized percussion caps or self-contained cartridges. He checks for an inspection stamp in order to determine if it was a military weapon, and identifies the proof mark — a distinct logo stamped on European firearms — for the country of origin.

The trouble is, solidifying a place and time of production doesn't answer every question. That's when he starts to speculate.

"The most frustrating and difficult (part of what I do), is a lot of the firearms come in and have stories associated with them," he said. "Those are hard to confirm and usually equally hard to say, 'No, that is probably not a true story.'"

Recently, Green identified a firearm was a musket of Austrian make, allowing him to accurately place it as having been produced between 1848 and 1870. If he were to speculate as to how it made its way to Wyoming, he could say with 95% confidence that it was one of 100,000 muskets purchased by the Confederate Army during the United States Civil War.

A good portion of surviving soldiers and their weaponry moved west following the conflict, so it can be assumed the musket followed a similar path. This process of establishing historical likelihoods was also used for a rusted and deformed lock plate found in the Tongue River in Dayton. He was able to definitively recognize it as a firing mechanism common in European muskets from mid-19th century through a reverse Google Images search, allowing him to later confirm the lock plate had belonged to a 1840s French military musket the Union Army had used.

It's harder to confirm stories intertwined with Wyoming legend. Think of it as debunking a historical game of telephone, where everyone's great-grandfather managed to come into contact with an infamous outlaw.

"You have one person who's making a claim that this happened because great-grandpa heard about this event, right?" he said. "He probably read a newspaper in the time frame that it actually happened and, of course, he would repeat this and tell about this event.

"Then, grandfather assumes from the stories that great-grandfather was on the scene as an observer. Having heard all these stories over the years, father assumes that great-grandfather was a participant. Son assumes that great-grandfather was the lead character in the incident, and was handed down the rifle that great-grandpa used to kill Billy the Kid."

Whether the stories are true or not doesn't always matter.

Visitors can see this for themselves in one of the newest exhibits at the museum, "Down the Barrel of History: Legendary Guns from Wyoming's Past." Curated by Green, the exhibit compiles some of the best-preserved firearms from the collection that pertain to Wyoming's history, but Green made sure to include an important tagline at the start of the exhibit — "Every old gun has a story. Sometimes we know it, sometimes we don't, sometimes the story isn't true."

Green is a natural storyteller first and a researcher second, though he's come a long way in this position as the latter.

"I was raised on a ranch in eastern Colorado. My dad was a gun owner, a hunter and started teaching me to shoot when I was 5 years old," Green said. "He bought me a .22-caliber rifle for Christmas when I was 8. So, I've always been interested in firearms, and followed them and read about them and gone to gun shows, gone to Cody. It's always been interesting.

"I've learned a tremendous amount the last five years by actually having hands on and sharing the research on these specific firearms. It's been a wonderful, unique opportunity."

A competitive shooter for many years and a firearm safety trainer for the Laramie County Sheriff's Office, Green often reads about Western history in his free time. He also independently researches firearms, sometimes helping identify guns on forums like Reddit.

It's not always about expertise. Green's personal experience plays an important role in his ability to engage with the subject matter, as is the case with one of his favorite pieces in the museum's collection: a 1873 Winchester Rifle.

"You have the stock, you have the action, and you have a forehand," he said. "There's a depression worn into the forehand (of the Winchester), and I happen to know what that's from. Because my dad had a Winchester rifle that he carried for years across the saddle, and it wore that same depression."

Perhaps his most defining characteristic, however, is applying his knowledge of Western history to keep listeners engaged in his story. Whether he walks through a story of the Old West or a memory from his life, dances between figures like Tom Horn and Earl Durand, or gives the listener a clear understanding of the upkeep of a buffalo rifle, his approach demands attention.

This ability came in handy when Green took on the opportunity to host a recurring series of firearms videos, available on the Wyoming State Museum's YouTube channel, where he takes viewers through the history of a specific firearm or class of firearm. The most recent video introduced the topic of Springfield rifles, and the next video will continue the mini-series on Dec. 22.

Green has also hosted in-person events at the Wyoming State Museum. On Jan. 11, at 7 p.m., he'll give a presentation titled "Firearms as Art," that will explore the history of firearms as works of art, from design to engraving.

He has no problem telling a story, but don't expect him to go against the facts — in most cases, that is.

"When I was finally going to retire for the last time, my wife said, 'You can retire anytime you want, as long as you're out of the house," he said, laughing.

"That's one of those things where I don't let the facts ruin a good story ... she never said that."

Will Carpenter is the Wyoming Tribune Eagle's Arts and Entertainment/Features Reporter. He can be reached by email at wcarpenter@wyomingnews.com or by phone at 307-633-3135. Follow him on Twitter @will_carp_.