Simmons Hardware St. Louis, MO
 

I just snagged this picture off FB. It was posted as a picture of the Hawken Rifle Factory but in the distance, down the road, is the huge Simmons Hardware store where hundreds of Parker Bros. shotguns were originally shipped.


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That's where my 12ga. GH from 1899 was shipped to.

My GH was shipped to Simmons ten years earlier, June 28, 1889.

I have or have had three or four Parkers shipped there.

In fact, I think I see Connecticut plates on that wagon…




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Simmons was certainly a big deal in my Show-Me State, selling all sorts of sporting goods, including guns stamped with their own moniker.

I have some guns from Simmons, too. It must have been quite the business. I’ll bet Mr. Researcher has some good info.

I was going to play but going through my letters I found that none of the Parkers I own were shipped to Simmons.

I wonder which wholesaler of Parkers was the farthest away from the factory in Meriden?

This one ordered by Simmons in 1899. The only one I possess that bears the Simmons name I believe.

Very nice, but I assume you cut those barrels down to a more reasonable length. :)

Probably somewhere in our colonies like Squires, Bingham & Co. in the Philippines.

Probably equally big in St Louis was Norvell-Shapleigh Hardware Co. that in 1910 bought the entire inventory of Remington break-action guns when Marcellus Hartley Dodge saw that Remington's shotgun future was with their John M. Browning designed autoloader and John D. Pedersen designed pump.

I've owned 2 Parkers which were shipped t Simmons:
1. 1894 12 gauge "O" with 30 inches twisted steel barrels (still in my vault, has killed multiple turkeys)
2. 1899 GH 16 gauge with 30 inch barrels (which I sold to Mills many years ago)