22 and 38 caliber shell casings excavated from 1300-1302 S. Robertson Street

The use of firearms for hunting, recreation, or personal safety was not unusual in the turn of the century city, and bullets and shell casings are often found in sparse quantities. However, as valuable items, firearms are much less likely to enter the archaeological record. In this case, the concentration of items related to firearms certainly evokes the climate of fear for many Italian immigrants in the early 1900s, when they existed as both the object of discrimination and the target of extra-legal violence and exploitation. The so-called ‘Axeman’ attacks, aimed at Italian owned corner stores like that of the Salvaggios between 1916 and 1919, are the most notorious example of this, and a shotgun next to the door would have provided some sense of security in the era.