Image of Lt. J. C. "Carl" Day holding rifle outside the Book Depository
Jay Skaggs was the only known photographer to capture a picture of the rifle at the scene with color film. Newspaper and television photographers rarely used color in those days, and with the exception of one motorcade photograph, all color images taken over the assassination weekend were made by amateurs.
The rifle, at first misidentified as a Mauser, was soon found to be a Mannlicher-Carcano, a basic Italian weapon manufactured in 1940 and considered war surplus. FBI agents traced the rifle to Lee Harvey Oswald the next morning by examining the microfilm records of Klein's Sporting Goods, a Chicago mail order firm specializing in guns. The rifle, ordered under the name Alex Hidell (a fictitious name favored by Oswald), had been shipped to Oswald's Dallas post office box eight months earlier. - Gary Mack, Curator