By Mike Bowen, co-author, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site
A Starr revolver was once on display with some of Chuck Bowen’s Sand Creek artifacts.
From our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site:
Starr Revolver
The Albright family arrived in Sheridan Lake from Kentucky in 1887, only twenty-three years after the Sand Creek event. Buster was eleven. His younger brother, Kiowa, called Ki, said to be the first white child born in the newly formed Kiowa County. It was established on April 11, 1889, and Ki was born four months later.
Gillette Fluke came to the area from Iowa with his family to homestead near Water Valley, north of Chivington, the same year the Albrights came. Gillette was nine years old (Jacobs, Betty and Teal, Roleta, compiled by, Kiowa County, page 96).
Buster, a fifteen-year-old cowboy, worked for the SS Cattle Ranch in 1891. While riding his horse along Sand Creek, he found a Starr Army revolver, Patent Jan. 1856. His cowboy friend, Gillette, only thirteen when the gun was found, documented the location of the find on a small piece of paper. He didn’t date the document.
‘This is to certify that
W. H. Albright found & old Cap & Ball
gun the summer & year of 1891 west
of the Indian Battle ground on Big sandy
creek ten miles north of Chivington
Colorado gun was made by the
star arms Co Patent Jan. 1856
Seal no# 24227
A. G. Fluke’ (See a copy of this note in chapter eight of We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site).
He said the gun was found 10 miles north of Chivington—I also found the cannonball field ten miles north of Chivington. The traditional site is 8 ½ miles northeast of Chivington. I discovered the cannonball field 108 years after he located the gun. The old lantern, also from this area, turned out to be from the 1860s. All the artifacts from this area indicate this event took place up the creek from the monument.
The Starr revolver was passed down from Buster to his grandson, Bill Huffman. Bill placed it on loan for a short time at Big Timbers Museum and was displayed with my Sand Creek artifacts.
It’s unknown which Sand Creek soldier carried the revolver, but it’s incredible the revolver has had only two known owners since Sand Creek, Buster Albright and his grandson, Bill Huffman.
As a child, Chuck knew Gillette Fluke, who documented the find of the Starr revolver.
“I don’t know when I first became interested in the history of our ranch, I guess I was born that way. My dad said I was born a hundred years too late. I enjoyed talking with the old-timers. Gillette Fluke told me that as a kid, he stood on a hill west of Sand Creek on what is now our ranch, and watched a stagecoach roll by,” Chuck Bowen said (We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site, chapter eight).
That stagecoach traveled from Lamar to Water Valley to Kit Carson and then looped back to Lamar. The route also went through the Bowen ranch—the stage station was Chuck’s first archaeological dig when he was only 15. At a young age, Chuck was learning about area history, the family cattle ranch and Sand Creek—he has been studying the Sand Creek event for over 50 years and has been searching for and finding artifacts for over 30 years. He is truly the Sand Creek expert. Read about the stage station dig in chapter seven of our book.
Bill Huffman passed away last year and unfortunately, the gun’s whereabouts are unknown—it would be awesome if the gun could be preserved and displayed with Bowen’s Sand Creek collection, which amasses over 4,000 village and battle artifacts.
All of the artifacts Chuck found were on the Bowen family ranch, on what we call the Lost Sand Creek Site. It’s not a secondary skirmish area—it’s the location of Black Kettle’s village and running battle areas that start on the opposite side of the creek from the village.
The area below the bluff at the National Park Service Sand Creek site, where the NPS alleges the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians were camped and attacked by soldiers, is void of period artifacts. No bullets, no battlefield. In May of ‘99, the NPS found a small area with some artifacts over a mile up the creek from their alleged massacre location. Their finds included 174 unfired musket balls all in the same hole, four cannonball fragments all in a line near a trail road, some nails, some bullets, but they didn’t find a single Bormann fuse or any .69 caliber lead balls that filled the cannonballs. The Bormann fuse was the timing device for the cannonballs. See our blog here: Cannonballs.
Bowen found hundreds of .69 caliber lead balls and a number of Bormann fuses at the Lost Sand Creek Site.
Any of your questions about the discovery of the Lost Sand Creek Site can be found in our book. Learn about the discoveries of the village site, running battle locations and cannonball field. Click on the Buy The Book tab in the top right corner of the page or click here: WeFoundTheLosSandCreekSite.
We are about truth according to the evidence that cannot lie: the artifacts.
Truth matters. Truth wins.
