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Samuel Colt is known as a great inventor and better marketer but his prowess as an entrepreneur and organizer is massively underrated. By in large Colt was the first American industrial tycoon centered on the idea of mass production and interchangeable parts, known today as “The American System of Manufacturing”. He was the first manufacturer to harness the power of the assembly line, fifty years before Henry Ford would immortalize it. Colt built Coltsville; one of the first and most sophisticated company towns of the 19th century, where he would establish some progressive ideas for employees and also lay the ground work for the great industrial class of latter 19th Century like Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. Most notably Colt established a ten-hour work day, backed by a mandated one-hour lunch break. It is often written that Colt ran his plant with “military precision” and was prone to fire employees for tardiness. A machine that large cannot function without the sum of all its parts. Nevertheless, it’s clear to see why McClatchie played such significant role in Colt’s empire, and was likewise deserving of this gorgeous embellished revolver presented to him after retirement.
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