From 1911_purview

C

rown City Arms (owned and operated by Terry Hudson) is a largely overlooked chapter in 1911 history…well, not anymore. Long before custom 1911s became the cottage industry we know and love today, small shops and dudes working out of back-alley garages, were quietly pushing Johnny Browning’s design forward. Crown City Arms (out of Cortland, New York) and its founder Terry Hudson were a small part of that movement. Hudson and his wife, Marcy, started Crown City Arms circa 1970, developing a self-described hobby into a full-time business. Crown City became known as a supplier of 1911 parts and eventually served as a Colt warranty repair station. For a relatively brief period in the late 1970s, Crown City also offered complete 1911 builds. This .45 is one of those guns. Sure, it’s pedestrian by today’s standards, but remember, this gun was made almost 50 years ago. I’m trying to figure out if the BoMar and tall front sight were installed by Crown City, or were they added later? BoMars were already well established by the time this pistol was built, and Crown City offered pistols with adjustable sights, so a Crown City installation is entirely plausible. That being said, the surviving Crown City advertisements I have located don’t specifically identify Bo-Mar sights as standard equipment. My suspicion is that the sights may have been added as a Bulleye set up after the pistol left Crown City—but that’s just me guessing. Given Crown City’s gunsmithing and parts business, even a later installation doesn’t necessarily mean the work wasn’t done by Crown City itself. I found one Crown City advertisement in American Handgunner, denoting various package models-the Condor, Eagle, Falcon, Hawk, Swift and Hummingbird. Always birds. 🦅 So there you have it. These guns have stories. Grips by Steve Herrett.