The year was 1964, and more than 100 exhibitors had packed the Hotel Patten in downtown Chattanooga for one of the city’s biggest gun shows.
The accompanying photo, part of a collection of vintage images curated by the website ChattanoogaHistory.com, shows gun collector Darlene Peavy, who was described in a newspaper article as one of the few female exhibitors at the show that year.
A caption with the photo, which was published in the Chattanooga News-Free Press on Dec. 5, 1964, notes Peavy “is shown with two pieces from her pistol collection, a flintlock and lady-like derringer.”
According to the Britannica.com, a flintlock is an “ignition system for firearms developed in the early 16th century,” which involves a striker hitting a flint which, in turn, showers sparks onto gun powder.
A derringer is a “pocket pistol produced in the early 19th century by Henry Deringer, a Philadelphia gunsmith,” according to the website.