40 Nebraskaland • March 2022
eavily marred with dirt , dings,
scratches and rust, it did not
look like much. Despite its
condition, I knew the item
handed to me — a Stevens Springfi eld
87A .22 semi-automatic rifl e — was a
special gift.
I best remember the gun from my
childhood in southwestern Nebraska
in the 1980s; it hung on the rack in
Grandpa Alfred's beat-up green Ford
as it was parked at his and Grandma's
service station on Danbury's main
street. Resting in the rear window, the
rifl e was always at the ready during his
evening trips to the farm, his boyhood
home 4 miles north of town.
I was fortunate to be passenger on
many of the daily trips to the place
where he and my dad were raised, and
have memories of Grandpa teaching
me how to use the rifl e at a nearby
prairie dog town.
Rifl es such as this were not required
to have serial numbers until 1968, but
the barrel has one patent number;
resources indicate it was manufactured
in the model's fi rst three years of
production, which began in 1938.
Grandpa often told of how the gun
paid for itself in jackrabbits in short
time. Considered an overpopulated
pest during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s
and into the 1940s, many counties
off ered a bounty on the long-legged,
hungry grazers. A newspaper article
from 1940, when Grandpa was 19, tells
of the McCook rendering plant paying 5
cents per jackrabbit. An advertisement
from that year shows the gun could
be bought for $11.61. So, cost of
ammunition aside, I fi gure that's about
232 jackrabbits.
H
New Life
for the
Old Stevens
By Justin Haag
Hunters pose with the 60 jackrabbits and one cottontail they harvested near Hay
Springs in 1931. Considered a pest during the Dust Bowl years, many counties
off ered bounties to encourage hunting them.
L.L. BUTZINE
