Remington Timeline: 1875 – Remington Guns of the Wild West

By G&A Staff

If our Civil War had been traumatic, then the immediate aftermath was equally so. While the fabric of the nation had avoided being torn in two, it was badly tattered on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. Besides the physical damage of the war, the former social and property structure of the South was totally demolished. And, while victorious, the North was facing an economic disaster.

The cost of the war had escalated the national debt to a then-astronomical three billion dollars. Countless factories that had tooled up for the war effort now had to convert their production lines to civilian products and to find markets for those products.

This need also applied to E. Remington & Sons, but in a different manner. Its basic business, and commitment, for the future was to produce firearms. And, although almost all Remington contracts for supplying the military were terminated at the war’s conclusion, that commitment wasn’t to change. Remington now faced a desperate need to find other markets for its arms production, either civilian or military. That wasn’t going to be easy, since a number of other armsmakers faced the same need and were now direct competitors.