been duplicated. Black kept his technique secret and did all of his work behind a leather curtain. Many claim that Black rediscovered the secret of producing true Damascus steel. In 1870, at the age of 70, Black attempted to pass on his secret to the son of the family that had cared for him in his old age, Daniel Webster Jones. However, Black had been retired for many years and found that he himself had forgotten the secret. Jones would later become Governor of Arkansas. The claims regarding James Black and his knives have been challenged by historians and knife experts. Little can be either proven or disproven; Black was found mentally incompetent before his claims were published. The birthplace of the Bowie knife is now part of the Old Washington Historic State Park which has over 40 restored historical buildings and other facilities including Black's shop. The park is known as "The Colonial Williamsburg of Arkansas". The University of Arkansas Hope - Texarkana opened their James Black School of Bladesmithing and Historic Trades in historic Washington in January 2020. Later history The term "Bowie knife" appeared in advertising (multiple places) by 1835, about 8 years after the sandbar brawl, while James Bowie was still alive. From context, "Bowie knife" needed no description then, but the spelling was variable. Among the first mentions was a plan to combine a Bowie knife and pistol. Cutlers were shipping sheath knives from Sheffield England by the early 1830s. By 1838 a writer in a Baltimore newspaper (posted from New Orleans) suggested that every reader had seen a Bowie knife. The Bowie knife found its greatest popularity in the Old Southwest of the mid-19th century. However, accounts of Bowie knife fighting schools are based on fiction; newspapers of the era in the region contained advertisements for classes in fencing and self-defense. Bowie knives had a role in the American conflicts of the nineteenth century. They are historically mentioned in the independence of Texas, in the Mexican War, the California gold rush, the civil strife in Kansas, the Civil War and later conflicts with the American Indians. John Brown (abolitionist) carried a Bowie (which was taken by J. E. B. Stuart). (p 117) John Wilkes Booth (assassin of Abraham Lincoln) dropped a large Bowie knife as he escaped. (p 158) "Buffalo Bill" Cody reportedly scalped a sub-chief in 1876 in revenge for Custer (the Battle