In 1831, silversmith James Black made for Colonel James Bowie the original Bowie Knife. Black made the knife, but Bowie made it famous. The shop was reconstructed in 1960 by the Pioneer Washington Restoration Foundation Inc. with funds donated by Albert G. Simms of Albuquerque, N.M., in honor of his father, Thomas Hamilton Simms, who came to Washington in 1857, served in the Confederate Army, and died after a long and honorable life at Texarkana, Arkansas, in 1918.