1847: Samuel Colt sells his first revolver pistol to the United States government

(Wikipedia) On January 4, 1847, Captain Samuel Walker and the Texas Rangers, who had acquired some of the first Colt revolvers produced during the Seminole War, saw the holster revolver and ordered 1,000 of these revolvers for use in the Mexican-American War. The large order allowed Colt to re-establish his firearm business. As he no longer owned a firearm factory, or even had a model of a firearm ready for sale, Colt hired Eli Whitney Blake, who was established in the arms business, to make his guns. Colt and Captain Walker drew upon the prototype Colt had built with some improvements from Walker. From this new design, Whitney produced the first thousand-piece order known as the Colt Walker. The company then received an order for a thousand more; Colt took a share of the profits at $10 per pistol for both orders.
With the money he made from the sales of the Walkers and a loan from his cousin, Elisha Colt, a banker, Colt bought the machinery and tooling from Whitney to build his own factory: Colt's Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company factory at Hartford. Continued

Photo: The most powerful handgun until the introduction of the .357 Magnum, the Colt Walker. This reproduction is made by Uberti. (Flickr via Wikipedia)