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The Ersatz Wild West Shootouts of Palisade, Nevada · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you so
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Super producer Casey Pegram, could you
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  Speaker 1: play us in with a little bit of a wild
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  Speaker 1: westy music vibe. I don't know whether we can get
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  Speaker 1: any no more cone for this, but a sound alike maybe.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Oh there, it is perfect. I'm beat. Yeah, it's just
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  Speaker 1: good enough that we're not gonna have to pay for
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the bunch of money for him. That's that's the plan.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: We're hoping to recreate the experience of being in the
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: wild West or watching a spaghetti western without getting sued.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: You watch that Mandalorian ben I did? Yeah, I did?
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  Speaker 1: I did? Do you notice that was a little bit
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of a you know, morricone sounded like kind of music
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: that listening almost almost egregiously so very much kind of vibe.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: It was very like clearly like even uh structured like
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: in terms of like the way the movements of the
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: peace went very much after the good, the Bad and
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: ugly soundtrack, and the way the plot moves is very
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: much a Western. It's a Western that happens to have
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: some space stuff involved. You know what I mean lots
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of dust and lots of dust and lots of those troopes,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: you know, a stranger comes to town. We're righting or wrong.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: We're teaching the townspeople to fight against these Nafari's forces, right,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: I mean the very first sequence was a showdown in
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: a saloon. If I'm not mistaken, right, good call. You know,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the Mandalorian is a perfect way to enter today's story
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: because the Mandalorian was one of the reasons, without spoiling
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: us that so compelling for a lot of people is
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: that there is this a little bit of genre bending
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: because on paper it's a sci fi but in the
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  Speaker 1: hearts of minds of the viewers, it's definitely pulling the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: strings of a Western and mainly Baby Yoda. That's mainly
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  Speaker 1: why people like the show. Technically the child, the child,
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  Speaker 1: that's right. It's so funny that it's become this baby Yoda.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Thinking that's not that's total misnomer. Talk to someone like
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  Speaker 1: Holly Fry, she will set you straight. She we we
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  Speaker 1: hung out with her this weekend and I mentioned um.
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  Speaker 1: I asked her how she felt about people referring to
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  Speaker 1: it as Baby Yoda. She goes nobody knows Yoda's species, right,
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  Speaker 1: and that's Cannon. Uh that I think that comes from Lucas,
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  Speaker 1: if not directly from Lucas, It's been well established, non negotiable.
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  Speaker 1: No one knows the species to which Yoda, Master Yoda belongs.
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  Speaker 1: There is another example of his species that is canon.
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  Speaker 1: And then there's the third, which is referred to as
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  Speaker 1: the Child and the Mandalorian. So in in the Mandalorian,
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  Speaker 1: there is this creature that's you know what. It's kind
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  Speaker 1: of like how in TLC, or maybe it was in
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Discovery when they did as series on child pageants, which
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  Speaker 1: Casey and I had to get involved in editing. You
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  Speaker 1: remember that, Casey, I do remember this. I'm trying to
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  Speaker 1: remember her name of the show. I can't remember the
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  Speaker 1: name of the show, but I remember, Uh. I guess
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't Honey Boo boo, was it? It was? It
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  Speaker 1: was it was the soil from which Honey Boo Boo sprang.
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  Speaker 1: Who used to have a name, but people just loved
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  Speaker 1: a statement that this character made so much that it
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  Speaker 1: became her name. They would just call her honey Boo boo. Uh. Now,
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  Speaker 1: even though it's technically the child, the studios have kind
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  Speaker 1: of acceded to the demand and have allowed it to
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  Speaker 1: be called Baby Yoda. You know, why wouldn't that. I'm
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  Speaker 1: really looking forward to that new Baby Yoda plus she
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  Speaker 1: from Bill da Bear. I will be buying one for
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  Speaker 1: my daughter and possibly one for myself. Yeah. I'm probably
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  Speaker 1: gonna get like a onesie. What are those Japanese kigarumi? Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get one of those. I'm very excited about
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  Speaker 1: the action figures. I enjoy action figures. It'll only need
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  Speaker 1: to like have very limited movement though. I only need
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  Speaker 1: to have his little hands be able to go up
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  Speaker 1: ever so slightly, and it's a little neck to be
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  Speaker 1: able to swivel. Yeah, I want the deluxe model with
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  Speaker 1: like eighteen unnecessary points of articulation, you know, so like
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  Speaker 1: the little the three little fingers can move and making
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  Speaker 1: fingers and making Yoda hands he has. It's really creeping
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  Speaker 1: me out. I want one that comes with that little
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  Speaker 1: floating egg. Yeah that I want to be fully functional.
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  Speaker 1: But that's asking kind of a lot, But we digress.
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  Speaker 1: Baby Yoda aside, the Mandalorian is in fact a space
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  Speaker 1: Western follows a lot of those tropes. It has that
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  Speaker 1: whole like the town situation where the streets are empty
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  Speaker 1: and the lone gunman comes walking into town. Only then
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: do all the bounty hunters emerge, you know, in this
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  Speaker 1: case on jet packs or whatever. But I think the
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  Speaker 1: cool thing about the Mandalorian is Western and his sci
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  Speaker 1: Fi is that we all understand it is fictional. It
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  Speaker 1: takes place in a fictional universe, right, and as much
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  Speaker 1: as we may love these characters, they and the events
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  Speaker 1: depicted in the show are not real. It may surprise
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  Speaker 1: some of us listening today to know that the concept
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  Speaker 1: of the wild West in general has been greatly exaggerated.
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  Speaker 1: The period that we would call the wild West, the
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  Speaker 1: actual wild West in the United States, it's actually a
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  Speaker 1: very short span of time, and despite being a short
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  Speaker 1: span of time, it captured the national imagination. You know.
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  Speaker 1: People wanted to be out on the horizon, uh, singing,
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  Speaker 1: get along, little doggies. They wanted to rope cattle, they
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  Speaker 1: wanted the whole nine the ten gallon hat. And it
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  Speaker 1: turns out that just living vicariously through the world of
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  Speaker 1: film was not quite enough to satisfy the wild West
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  Speaker 1: itch of audience members, and so people began to recreate
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  Speaker 1: to the best of their ability the scenes they had
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  Speaker 1: seen depicted on film, and they also depicted these sort
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  Speaker 1: of like a oh, it's like a re enactment village.
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  Speaker 1: You know what I mean if you've ever been to
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  Speaker 1: the Virginia's or you know one of those like colonial
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  Speaker 1: towns where they go, this is how we turn butter
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  Speaker 1: and you know, we have to uh, we have to
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  Speaker 1: burn these people as witches. I'm kidding hopefully about that
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  Speaker 1: last part. That's a little dark. But all of these things,
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  Speaker 1: these tropes, these depictions of fiction, these recreated experiences, they
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  Speaker 1: all come to a head in a small town called Palisade, Nevada,
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  Speaker 1: not Palisades, just the one Palisade, Nevada. Today there's nothing left.
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  Speaker 1: But once upon a time it used to be a
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  Speaker 1: cavalcade of Wild West themed adventures. Yes, it's true, almost
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  Speaker 1: like a low tech West world. Um. Because in the
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  Speaker 1: eighteen seventies, uh, Palace said, Nevada had kind of a
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  Speaker 1: rep as being a pretty tough place full of outlaws
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  Speaker 1: and bounty hunters and you know, loose women and the like. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, the place that was prone to stagecoach robberies,
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  Speaker 1: shootouts or even attacks from Indian tribes from from the area.
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  Speaker 1: But here's the thing. It was actually like West World,
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  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of theater minus the the ridiculous lee
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  Speaker 1: advanced ai um. But just the same, it did get
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  Speaker 1: that reputation, and there were some people that weren't in
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  Speaker 1: on the joke. Uh. Newspaper reporters for example, who wrote
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  Speaker 1: about the place as though it were real. Um with
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  Speaker 1: that that whole notion of being a real, you know,
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  Speaker 1: rough and tumble place full of tough customers and outlaws, etcetera.
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  Speaker 1: It's interesting. So Palisade, Nevada, during the the age of
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  Speaker 1: the railroad, it only had a population of about three hundred.
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  Speaker 1: It was kind of like it was one of those
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  Speaker 1: towns that just sprang up because of the railroad, and
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  Speaker 1: it was this isolated, kind of kind of rough place,
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  Speaker 1: you know. It was named originally it was named Palisades
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  Speaker 1: in the plural uh, named after the rock cliffs that
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  Speaker 1: were the east of town. They were on the banks
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  Speaker 1: of the Humble River, and according to publication called The
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  Speaker 1: Pacific Tourist, which was a guidebook for people traveling by
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  Speaker 1: rail in the late eighteen hundreds, the town was halfway
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  Speaker 1: down this crazy wild Canyon, and it was largely untraveled,
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  Speaker 1: and the upper half of the canyon was so rugged
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  Speaker 1: that quote not even a horseman venta through it. So
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  Speaker 1: this town, even it was found in eighteen sixty eight.
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  Speaker 1: I'm getting a little ahead of myself there. When it
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  Speaker 1: was founded, it was just a place to water the
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  Speaker 1: steam engines on the Control Pacific Railroad. And it grew
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  Speaker 1: into a depot in the eighteen seventies, so it was
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  Speaker 1: at one time it was a real you know, wild
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  Speaker 1: West town, that's right. It actually was a pretty popular
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  Speaker 1: depot in the eighteen seventies. Um Elko and Carlon were
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  Speaker 1: two other depost stops, and it it was it gave
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  Speaker 1: them a run for their money on the Central Pacific
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  Speaker 1: line that was for wagon free and stage lines. UM
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  Speaker 1: on the way to Mineral Hill, Eureka and Hamilton's uh
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  Speaker 1: And Palisade was a very big shipping hub destro center
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  Speaker 1: for sheep and cattle UM and also other types of
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  Speaker 1: shipments coming from the east and west. And we have
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  Speaker 1: a really great account of some of these details on
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  Speaker 1: the Elko Daily dot com. And it's interesting. Um the
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  Speaker 1: town was very resive, very resilient little town. It actually
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  Speaker 1: survived a pretty serious fire, um and a flood around
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  Speaker 1: nineteen ten. Um. But yeah, I mean, the the whole
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  Speaker 1: idea behind this place is that it had this reputation.
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  Speaker 1: There were reports that they were all of these crazy
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  Speaker 1: massacres that were happening on the regular uh, specifically when
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  Speaker 1: the train would pass through. Um and and was this
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  Speaker 1: a coincidence? It turns out it wasn't a coincidence because
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  Speaker 1: the residents of Palisay were um, actually putting on a
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  Speaker 1: bit of a show. It was all a bunch of
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  Speaker 1: theater for the tourists. They would you know, league up
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  Speaker 1: even with local Native American tribes from the Shoshonee tribe,
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  Speaker 1: and they would put on these massacres, using everything from
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  Speaker 1: you know, blank rounds, two gallons of cattle blood to
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  Speaker 1: create the illusion that these were real shootouts. Um. So,
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  Speaker 1: and the thing that I was confused about, and then
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  Speaker 1: I was asking about earlier, is do you think that
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  Speaker 1: the folks were in on it? Um, the folks who
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  Speaker 1: rode by and saw these things. I'm guessing that eventually
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  Speaker 1: they may be aware, but uh, it certainly seems that
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  Speaker 1: some folks weren't in on the joke, because there were
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  Speaker 1: newspaper articles being written left and right about how this
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  Speaker 1: place was so rough. Um. But as it turns out,
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  Speaker 1: all these folks were just amateur actors. That's correct. According
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  Speaker 1: to an article in the Eureka Sentinel by Dave Maxwell,
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  Speaker 1: it turned out that the vast majority of people who
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  Speaker 1: were passing through on the Central Pacific train line had
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  Speaker 1: no idea that these robberies and these attacks were staged. Now,
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  Speaker 1: we are not sure at this point exactly how these uh,
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  Speaker 1: this idea of fake shootouts began, but you'll see some
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  Speaker 1: historians saying that a train conductor once talked to a
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  Speaker 1: resident of Palisade, Nevada, and said, you know, my passengers
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  Speaker 1: loved the idea of the wild West. They read it
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  Speaker 1: and dime novels and all this other stuff, and they're
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  Speaker 1: kind of disappointed. They're a little defleated when they passed
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  Speaker 1: through and it's just a regular town. So what seems
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  Speaker 1: to have occurred is that the town people said, oh,
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  Speaker 1: you want, you want a wild West experience, Well, by golly,
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  Speaker 1: you're going to have it. So anyway, they were already actors.
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  Speaker 1: They just happened to be a town of like nascent
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  Speaker 1: actors that were looking for an outlet to apply their craft,
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  Speaker 1: and it was just a perfect storm where they're like,
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  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, Okay, now we've got finally we've
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  Speaker 1: been thirsting to tread the boards, and now here we
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  Speaker 1: are with the perfect opportunity. What do you think that
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  Speaker 1: this is all very interesting to me? It seems like
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  Speaker 1: because because they're amateurs, it seems like they took inspiration.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe there were a few sort of repressed would be actors, uh,
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  Speaker 1: but but I think they really began doing this purposely
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  Speaker 1: for the railroad. The townspeople started recruiting amongst themselves. They
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  Speaker 1: got railroad workers in on the job, and they even,
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  Speaker 1: as you said, got a local community of Native Americans
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  Speaker 1: to join in. And for three years they would do
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  Speaker 1: these fake gunfights. Uh. These these attacks they would use
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  Speaker 1: beef blood from the local slaughter house. And they were
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  Speaker 1: able to pull this off because when these trains pulled
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  Speaker 1: into town, they would be bound for places like San
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  Speaker 1: Francisco or Chicago, and this is where they would make
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  Speaker 1: a stop. So you wouldn't be cramped up in the
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  Speaker 1: passenger car all day. Of course, you want to get out,
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  Speaker 1: you want to walk around, pick up some snacks and
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  Speaker 1: that's when the quote unquote attacks would ocur. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I guess that's lucky that nobody got hurt, right. I
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: can't get over the West World comparison here, because this
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  Speaker 1: is like West World, but yet this is during the
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  Speaker 1: time or supposedly that type of scene existed, and folks
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: might remember or if not, you should check it out.
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  Speaker 1: We did an episode pretty early in the history of
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  Speaker 1: the show called the Wild West was pretty dull or
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: wasn't really that wild at all? And um, that really
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  Speaker 1: does go and to show how uh, these law these
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: these super lawless and violent um towns were quite largely
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  Speaker 1: the product of of some fictionalization and and fabulousm from
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  Speaker 1: uh you know, yellow journalism to you know, actual fictionalized accounts. Um.
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  Speaker 1: But this was taking that and and pushing it to
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  Speaker 1: the next level. I just imagine people kind of getting
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  Speaker 1: off and that that that I'm going to San Francisco,
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  Speaker 1: gonna get me a little snag, hopes better step over this,
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  Speaker 1: uh you know, bloodied corpse here, and uh, this is
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  Speaker 1: all really fun and thrilling. I mean, I just you know,
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  Speaker 1: you would think that people would stop wanting to travel
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  Speaker 1: through it, but I think they were so thrilled by
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: it that they the word of mouth spread and they're like, oh,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: this is great. And yet it's still not clear if
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  Speaker 1: everybody knew that it was staged or not. It's true
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  Speaker 1: from what we can see, quite a few of the
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  Speaker 1: passengers had no idea what was pennine. We get some
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  Speaker 1: of this information from a Nevada historian named Dan Ashball,
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  Speaker 1: and Dan follows the follows, like the order of the
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  Speaker 1: typical fake attack or fake robbery, the residents of the town,
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  Speaker 1: or the railroad workers or the Native American community would
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  Speaker 1: wait till all the passengers got off, and then the
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  Speaker 1: shooting started. And the people the only people who fell
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  Speaker 1: when they got shot quote unquote, where the victims passengers
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  Speaker 1: thought there was straight up an attack, a train robbery,
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  Speaker 1: they screamed with terror. According to Dan, at least they
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  Speaker 1: ran for safe spots, and he notes that some people
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  Speaker 1: even dove under the train cars, which is a very
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: dangerous place to be. And I don't think, you know,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I don't think it was like a haunted house to them.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: I think they thought they were going to get shot
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  Speaker 1: in the head. I think you're right bad. That's that's
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the thing that I'm I'm trying to wrap my head
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: around because this was clearly meant to help bolster tourism.
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  Speaker 1: But I don't want to go on vacation to a
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  Speaker 1: place where I might get murdered, do you. I mean
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: we're very different people. Yeah, and I'm thinking that in
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: that way we would be mostly a lot I've got
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I've traveled to some weird places that not like not
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: on a family trip. I don't think it would be
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  Speaker 1: fair to take my girlfriends sort of a death wish adventurer.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: You are huh uh, you know, living on the edge.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: I think Ari Smith said it best. But I consent
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: to do these sorts of things. The people on this
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  Speaker 1: train very importantly did not. So my question is how
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: would this have conceivably helped with tourism? Yeah, you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: that's that's the question. Now, this was a boom and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: make no mistake, over the span of this I don't
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: know what you would call it, immersive theater. Over the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: span of this improv everywhere predecessor. Over the span of
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: this con they perpetrated like a thousand something fake rob
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: reads or attacks. In retrospect, we can laugh at this
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: because not a single passenger also called a green horn
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: or a tenderfoot, and not a single railroad employee was
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: ever injured. It turned out only the local folks were
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: quote unquote injured. Uh. Dan Ashball also notes this is
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: this is a funny line. He says, none of the
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: passengers ever seemed to notice that the victims were quickly
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: carried over to Johnson Saloon, where they miraculously recovered and
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: could watch the last act. The way its structure makes
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: me think, yeah, there was there was probably someone with
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: some theater background who was leading the charge on this,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: fascinated by the whole thing. Um, I would have loved
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: to witness that, blessed with the knowledge that I was
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I was not going to get shot in the face. Um.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: But you know, like many good things, I don't know
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  Speaker 1: if this is necessarily a good thing. This honestly seemed
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: like a pretty cruel prank to play on these green
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: horns with a term of abuse thrown around in those
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  Speaker 1: days for city slickers, folks that don't have the knowledge
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: or experienced life on the range. Um. But you know,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: it kind of backs up what I would think would
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: maybe be more of the reason there was a boom
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: in the first place, which was the fact that this
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: was a kind of a depot town and the trains
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: passed through. But when Eureka, UM, when Eureka's minds began
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: to you know, be um depleted, around eighteen eighty five,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Palisades started to kind of become a little less relevant. Um.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: By nineteen o two, the railroad company transferred this property
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: to a new company out of Utah and renamed it
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: the Eureka and Palisade Railway Company. But then possibly due
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: to some improvements in mine technology, it was several years later.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: After all, the nineteen oh two Eureka began to experience
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: kind of a renewed interest in its mind. They were
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: going to give it another go, looking for more old
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: and oars. So by the nineteen tens, um it was
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: kind of experiencing the whole area was experiencing sort of
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: a reboom, let's say, or a new um improvement in
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: its fortunes. And they found uh quite a big haul
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: of or every day uh that was hauled on that
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: railroad line to Palisay, where it was still you know,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: had the qualities of a depot. Uh. So it was
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: able to be transferred to another rail line, the Southern
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Pacific rail line and taken too places like Salt Lake
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: City where it could then be smelted. But remember I
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: referred to this as a pretty resilient town. Um. I
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: think I might have mischaracterized that because that actually, uh
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: wasn't necessarily the case when it came to the severe
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: flood and fires that ravaged the place. Uh soon after
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: this renewed boom. Um, it wouldn't necessarily recover so well
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: from these. The floods of nineteen ten caused a lot
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of damage to the tracks. I ever thought about that then,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: I guess floods if railroad tracks are you know, laid
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: in areas that could potentially become muddy, they could could
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: kind of shake loose, or they could actually like become damage, right,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: isn't that sort of the idea. Yeah, because they're they're
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: built on the ground, so if the ground beneath them
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: or roads, then they have nothing to be moored onto.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: So this was a real problem. I mean, you know,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of damage and erosion caused by
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the floods. Uh, so they weren't really able to kind
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: of continue using it in the way that it had
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: been used in the past. And then we um see
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: that the nineteen twelve the property was actually bought by
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: George Whittle and the Eureka Nevada Railway Company. Not quite
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: sure what they were intending to do with it. But
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: then we have a new player entering the game. Let's
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: introduce a character, John E. Sexton. He is the general
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: manager of the Eureka Nevada Railway line and he steers
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: this operation through those difficult flood old stormy years. When
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: he passed his away in seven, his brother, Charles B.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Sexton becomes the general manager. And there you know, they're
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: making it work, they're making it go, They're doing their best.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: However it ultimately goes could put in September nineteen the
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: little railroad between Eureka and Palisade is abandoned and the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: rails are literally pulled up out of that flood prone
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: ground and they are sold as scrap to Japan. With
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the railroad closing down, it turns out that there was
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: no reason for a town to be out here. The
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: railroad was the lifeblood of the entire community. This is
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: something we can see with the creation of the interstate system.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Uh you would have towns that existed only because they
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: were valuable stopovers. Or crossovers for old state roads and
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: things like that. But once you have an I seventy
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: five or an I twenty cutting a straight line through
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: the wild, these towns have no more reason to exist. Yeah,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that's very true. And that absolutely became the case for Palisade,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and and it really began to just completely deteriorate over
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: time until there really just wasn't that much left to
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: speak of. Um talk about a ghost town. I mean
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: it really not only was it abandoned of of humans. Um,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: all of that stuff had been kind of sold for
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: scrap to Japan, like you had said, and it was really,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: you know, in in complete and utter shambles. Yeah. And
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: one of the next times it made the news just
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: a year later, in ninety nine. Uh, it was because
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: of an unfortunate event. There was a real disaster. Uh.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Southern Pacific train named the City of San Francisco derailed
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: nearby and there were two hundred and twenty passengers and
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: crew aboard. Twenty four were killed, a hundred and twenty
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: one were injured. And so Palisade existed still on paper
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: in the realm of technicalities and this liminal space, because again,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: there's not really reason for people to live there, but
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: there's still government infrastructure, at least that is up until
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty one or nineteen sixty two, when the Palisade
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: Post Office was officially closed. And oh, man, you know
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: you're in trouble when the post office in your town closes.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: It's like the last school closing, dude. And no exactly.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I mean even like you know, living here in Georgia,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: traveling say to Athens or some of the more um
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: rural places you go through to get there, even like us,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: a town that's like a street length long has a
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: post office, you know, I mean that that it really
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: is the sign of like the last vestiges of civilization,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: which is interesting. That's still the case. So fast forward
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: to the present, roughly so around April of two thousand five. UM.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: This town has been in the Sexton family since the
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: nineteen twenties, uh, and it had finally come time for
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the uh. The descendant of that original John and Charles Sexton,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: who were the general managers and owners of the town
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: um back in the day, to unloaded um because he
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: wanted to send his daughter to college. And you know,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: college isn't isn't cheap, So he sold it for what
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I would consider a pretty reasonable sums about the price
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: you'd pay for a mid sized home. Um. You know,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: he sold a whole town for a hundred and fifty
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Uh. This was in the two thousands, so
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: that that was having the inflation, isn't that insane? Um
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: from two thousand five to nineteen, So I would I
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: don't know, we don't have the inflation calculator. I would.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I would guess that it would be maybe in the
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: realm of two fifty thousand dollars in today's dollars. But
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: that's just a guess, um. But it was actually you know,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the way it's characterized in this article, uh from the
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: San Francisco Gate is quote it was the most money
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: ever paid for nothing that anyone could remember. So, yeah,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: was a d thirty five year old Nevada ghost town
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: um that still existed on paper. But Ben, surely there's
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: land involved, right, I mean when when when they say
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: there's nothing, there's nothing there? But was that you know,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: for that for the area and they could actually redevelop
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: or now So for Sexton, this is a financial decision,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: but it's a it's an emotionally hefty decision for him
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: as well, because his mother loved the place. John Sexton,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the current Sexton, was around fifty years old at the time,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: but he hadn't been back to Palisade for almost forty years,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: thirty five years, and you know, to raise the money
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: for his daughter's tuition, he decided not to do a
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: straight up sale but to auction the town because there
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: was a big kind of wild West themed auction at
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: what was called the Greg Martin auction House in Salt
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Lake City on Third Street. And to your point about
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of nothing, Uh, here's here's what they had. Uh.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: They have photos that would help people bid on this lot. Uh.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: The town was lot number two five one two and
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: in the auction catalog you can see photos that show
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: what the winner of the bid will actually get. It
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: was though, I mean they got land. Yes. Uh. The
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: nothing to which you're referring is a lack of infrastructure
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: because other than rattlesnakes, tumbleweeds, casey kicking that Wild West
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: music again, half of a rusted car, you know, uh,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: washing machine, a cemetery. Uh, there was nothing else. You know,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: there's not a post office. You're not buying like a
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: working water. Uh. You know water treatment plant have a
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: handful of graves. UM. One of them a Miss Mary H.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: Hardy Um who died in nineteen hundred and her gravestone
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: red gone but not forgotten, which was a popular at
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Beataff at the time. And you know, there were also
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: a few historical roadside plaques. And according to this SFK article,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: um both used the word decline to describe the place.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: And that's sort of it's uh, it's place in history
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: is being a place in decline. That's mostly what it's
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: known for. But I do still stand by a hundred
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars for what a hundred and sixty
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: acres Isn't that not a crazy bad deal. It all
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: depends on the location. If there is potable water, that
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: definitely brings it up. Uh. And you know the thing
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: is that people were buying this, aren't buying it to resurrected. Uh.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: The bidding came down to three anonymous people who were
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: relaying their bids via telephone, and they were fans of
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: ghost towns. And the bidding actually faltered at a hundred
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: and thirty thousand dollars. People dropped out, but whomever bought
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: this anonymously. By the way, wanted to buy the ghost town.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: They wanted the decline, the emptiness. What a weird flex. Hey,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: let me show you my ghost town, my ghost town collection.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: That'd be a weird first date, you know, take someone
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: to your ghost town and have a romantic picnic lunch
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: in the abandoned cemetery next to the rusted car. I
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: would love it. I want a ghost town. I feel
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: like that would be a great thing to have, you know, now, Ben,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: here's a question for you and I, and I tend
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: to agree with you. There is Is there a list
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: of ghost towns that people can visit? There are many lists.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I would love to do that. That would be an interesting,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a little little trip. Check out some ghost towns. Yeah,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: I've been to a few myself. Um, and I would say,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: depending on where you live, there are more. Of course,
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: they're abandoned buildings everywhere, but there are more ghost towns
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: out there than you might think. Just be just be
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: careful and acknowledge, you know, obey any signs. If you
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: see something that says no trespassing out at the city
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: limits of like disappearant in or Vanishville or something whatever.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Your ghost town is called, there might be somebody there.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: And there are a lot of towns out there with
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: a population and like less than ten people. So do
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: respect their privacy in their space. And do also remember
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the Palisade, while it's a ghost town now, was home
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: to some other significant historical events. Right. It's true President
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Herbert Hoover UM had an attempt on his life there,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: uh in nineteen thirty two. This is you know, allegedly, Um,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: there was an attempted assassination right before his train card.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: It makes sense because this was this was very much
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a place that would you know, there would be a
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: pass through for a train transporting someone like this Um.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Right before his train would have gone through palisade, there
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: was an inspector who came across Um, a homeless person
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: by one of the railroad trestles, who had sticks of
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: dynamites supposedly intended to blow up the railroad bridge. Yeah,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: but the the inspectors didn't all agree. There was another
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: inspector who said, hey, that that vagrant, that vagabond did
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: not in fact have any dined in my long story short,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Hoover survived pretty cool, right, And here ends the tale
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: of Palisade, Nevada. We'd love to hear some stories about
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: some other ghost towns in your neck of the Global Woods.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: We also want to give a shout out to our
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: previous episode on wild West Myths. You want to laundry
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: list just a couple Yeah, we we we we Um.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: We found out a lot about that, um real early
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: on in the show. Um, the idea that cowboy hats
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: weren't really as much of a thing as they were depicted,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and overall the wild West just wasn't that wild at all.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: There was way less violence than uh, popular fiction and
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: culture would lead us to believe, far fewer cowboy hats.
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Bank robberies were not as common as you think, at
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: least not real ones. Okay, the bank robbery of Palisade
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: pretty regular for a few years, but again fake. And
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: it really is popular culture and American cinema and of
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: course Italian spaghetti westerns that really created the legacy that
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: we know of the wild West, which was you know,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: much exaggerated. UM just rewatched Once upon a Time in
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Hollywood on a flight yesterday and really really enjoyed all
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the depictions of the spawn movie ranch UM, which was
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: this like really insane movie set kind of ranch out
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: in the outskirts of Los Angeles where a lot of
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: westerns and television shows were filmed. And it turns out
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: that the first ever feature film was actually a western
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: out of Australia in nineteen o six, and it was
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: called the Story of the Kelly Gang uh and followed
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: uh the real life kind of misadventures of Ned Kelly,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: who was a well known um gangster. I guess outlaw um,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: so you know, it really was something that was kind
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: of cemented by that golden age of how he would
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: uh and uh. If you haven't seen Once upon a
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Time in Hollywood, I do recommend it. It's got a
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: lot of interesting tidbits about this kind of period in
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: movie and television history. I'd also like to give a
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: shout out to my old man, the Colonel himself, who
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: you may remember from a previous episode on States That
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Never Were. Turns out, old Colonel bull And grew up
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: with a train car that would do the same kind
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: of a very similar thing. You would take a ride
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: on this historic train and you would be subjected to
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: a fake uh, fake Native American attack. I actually reached
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: out to him earlier to to get the full skinny.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: If he has the full skinny, I like it. I
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: like it too. If he has some insight into these
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: kind of recreations, then I would I would love to
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: hear it. We'd also love to hear your stories. Uh.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: And you know what give the wild West and the
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: American Zeit guys a tough time if you must. Sure
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: the Wild West was largely exact rated, but come on,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: it gave us so much amazing fiction. It gave us,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: you know, the Man with No Name, It gave us
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the Mandalorian. It gave us one of my favorite musicians
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: of all time, anywo, Morri Coney. I cannot hate it,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: even if it's fictional. He gave us baby Yoda, which
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: is um you know, I would say the greatest gift
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: of all. And with that we would like to thank you,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: as always for tuning in. Big thanks, of course to
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: our super producer Casey Pegram. Huge thanks to Alex Williams
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: who composed our theme research associate Gabe Loser, Christopher Hasiota's
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: here in Spirit, and Jonathan Strickland, that uh notorious and
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: mischievous quister. Big thanks as well to Eve's Jeff coach
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: check out her show This Day in History Class where
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: spoiler alert, you might hear two of you'll hear us
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: making appearance act surprised. If you wish, you can join
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: our Facebook group we are the Ridiculous Historians. You can
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: check that out. Just name me or Ben as human
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: people or you know some other references. We'll get you
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: in the door easily. You can check us out individually
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: um On social media, I am exclusively on Instagram at
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: how Now Noel Brown, and you can find me in
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: a Burst of Creativity at Ben Bolan on Instagram. Tune
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: into that one, especially because there are a couple of
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: weird places I'm going to try to get over the
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: next two months. You can also find me on Twitter
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: where I am at Ben Bolan h s W And
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: with that we say get along little doggies. I just
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: wondered where they actually dogs like prairie dogs. Maybe maybe Ben,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: you take care of yourself on your adventures, my friend.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I worry about you sometimes. I want you to be safe,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: and safe travels to you as well more than books.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: your favorite shows,