Life for a Small Town Gunsmith

Once there was a man who decided to built a small Gun Factory. He had been a gunsmith for over 30 years working on people's gun. He knew the importance of low rent, due to the hard months of summer, when little gunsmithing work comes into a shop.

Many gunsmiths in fact close for the summer, and are only open during hunting season, and many operate from their homes because they cannot afford year long costs of business operations. This is a major reason it is so hard to find a gunsmith, together with the fact that many gunsmiths have became old and died.

The gunsmith in our story had been doing gunsmithing work in many places. The gunsmith had always had the challenge of little summer income, and surviving the hard summer months of little gun work.

He had his first repair shop in Tampa, Florida which was operated from his home. After moving to Tallahassee, he had his first commercial gun little shop on Woodville Highway in Tallahassee, Florida.

After a short period, the gunsmith needed more room, and a better location, so he moved to Gaines Street, in Tallahassee. This shop was one block from the state capital. It was known as Law Enforcement Gunsmiths & Police Supply.

During hard economic times when the Gaines Street Gun Shop became too slow to pay rent and bills, he moved to Capital Circle near the Tallahassee Airport. Due to his location not being well known, and slow business he then moved to an even smaller shop on Tharp Street in Tallahassee.

The Tharp Street move had just occurred when Tharp Street became closed for road construction making it near impossible to get into the Tharp Street Gun Shop.

Customers were not willing to fight a closed construction road to make to make it to the gunsmith. So he was forced to move again, this time to a home based double car garage, where he worked for several years.

After a couple of years of working from his home, he found an old grocery store building that was vacant in Midway, Florida. The building had been the Henry Dover Gas & Market, dating back to the 1940's.

When he found this old store, the doors were swing open, abandoned inside, empty and dirty. After painting the old building inside and outside, this became the gunsmith business home for over 18 years.

Although close to Tallahassee, only about 10 miles away on Highway 90, many potential customers would not drive to the little town of Midway, Florida in Gadsden County.

Unfortunately the public image of Midway, has often left it looking as a place once does not want to visit.

After becoming an Auctioneer, and trying the auction house business for a couple of years, which did not prove very profitable, the gunsmith in our story, decided to once again, return to the life of a gunsmith.

He began looking for another little building, with rent that he could afford. This meant it had to be in a place where rent was not high, and probably meant an area that was not in demand for business very much.

He found an empty building that had once had a booming life as a grocery store. But those days were long gone, and the little grocery store had been delegated to housing old furniture in storage for it's family owners.

After holding an auction for the family to rid the old store of furniture, he can to give the old building new life!

He painted the walls and floor, installed steel security bars, and began moving into the shop. The shop sit facing the highway, and was directly beside the little town's post office in Calvary, Georgia.

He spent his days repairing guns, and parting out guns, and when he had no guns from customers to work on, he would busy himself putting gun parts on gunbroker.com. He refinished gun metal, gun stocks, and event built some guns from parts.

An old friend of his had operated a gun shop in Havana, Florida literally for 50 years, Mr. Hugh Moreland.The gunsmith would obtain advise, directions, and find parts for guns he was working on from Mr. Hugh. He looked up to Mr. Hugh who had a great wealth of knowledge about guns. Mr. Hugh often helped the young aspriring gunsmith with problem guns he was working on trying to repair.

When Mr. Hugh passed away, the gunsmith managed to buy all of Mr. Hugh's vast collection of gun parts, dating back to the 1800's.

Because the gunsmith enjoyed Mr. Hugh's gun shop so much, and the fact he was a sentimental type person, the gunsmith even managed to buy all of Mr. High's antique pecan store display cases, from the family.

As a memory of Mr. Hugh's life spent as a gunsmith, one of the display cases they he obtained from the Moreland family, was left as it had been in Mr. Hugh's gun shop, with the items that were in the case, remaining as they had been in Mr. Hugh's store.

When going through old part guns, the gunsmith found an almost finished Tennessee Feuding Rifle, with the inscription “1945, Sapp, Delacy and Moreland”. This gun had never been finished.

After researching Mr. Hugh's family the gunsmith discovered that Mr. Sapp, was Hugh Moreland's grandfather, Dr. Sapp, who had been very valued and influenced Mr. Hugh in his early life. It was also discovered that Dr. Sapp died in 1945. Perhaps Mr. Hugh's gun work was stopped when his grandfather died, and the gun was left just were it had been, as a memory to Dr. Sapp. , and of when he and Mr. Hugh last worked on the project gun.

The Moreland's Gun Shop was in Havana, Florida. It has been torn down and now there are no traces of the former Gun Shop. One used to be able to see MORELAND'S signs all up and down Highway 19. But this was back in the “good ole days”, when Mom and Pop were alive and well in America.

When going through the vast parts, and part guns from Mr. Moreland, our gunsmith soon discovered that there was way more gun parts than the gunsmith would ever use in local repairs, so he advertised gun parts for sale on gunbroker.com.

People across the country ordered gun parts from him. He sent gun parts as far away as the State of Washington. Sending gun parts to the Carolina's, Texas, Montana and Wyoming were common

All of these gun parts were shipped from the middle of no where, where there was nothing there in Calvary, Georgia.

As always, during the summer months his business was slow, because hunters and others that have gunsto work on, were busy going to little league baseball, fishing and staying inside where it was cooler.

Since the summer months were know to be slow, the gunsmith had built his business in a small town, where buildings had sat empty, some for as long as ten years, because rent was so reasonable for an old building. The building the gunsmith found for his business, had been empty for over ten years.

People often said that there was nothing there, and wondered why the gunsmith put his business there. The gunsmith wanted a place to work on his guns, and knew he could manage to pay rent, electricity and other bills, even during the summer slow months when little business came into the shop, because rent was so cheap, and the fact there was nothing there, in the little town of Calvary, Georgia.

The gunsmith did not become rich, but he did what he enjoyed most, building and repairing guns.

_________________________________________________

Dwight Angel, Author

Dwight continues to work as a Gunsmith and operates Angel's

Armory & Forge in Havana, Florida.

(850) 509-0979

angel.dwight@yahoo.com

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