Latest / River City Mystery - Investigating mysteries in southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and western Kentucky / Wildman Joe

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Wildman Joe · River City Mystery - Investigating mysteries in southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and western Kentucky

• 0:02
  Speaker: Evansville, Indiana A city on
• 0:04
  Speaker: the river built on grit and
• 0:06
  Speaker: change.
• 0:07
  Speaker: But not every story from its
• 0:08
  Speaker: past is found in the history
• 0:10
  Speaker: books.
• 0:10
  Speaker: Some linger in the shadows.
• 0:12
  Speaker: Tales of survival against impossible odds.
• 0:15
  Speaker: Like the story of a man known as wild man Joe.
• 0:19
  Speaker: His life started in chains.
• 0:21
  Speaker: Born into slavery on a North Carolina plantation, he knew the
• 0:25
  Speaker: harsh reality of being owned.
• 0:27
  Speaker: Of a future dictated by others.
• 0:29
  Speaker: The Civil War ended.
• 0:30
  Speaker: That freedom came and Joe found
• 0:32
  Speaker: a new life on the water, working
• 0:35
  Speaker: the steamboats on the
• 0:36
  Speaker: Mississippi and Ohio rivers from
• 0:38
  Speaker: New Orleans all the way up to
• 0:39
  Speaker: Evansville.
• 0:40
  Speaker: The place he chose to call home after the war.
• 0:43
  Speaker: A taste of independence, of making his own way.
• 0:47
  Speaker: Then disaster.
• 0:49
  Speaker: A steamboat boiler exploded.
• 0:52
  Speaker: A blinding flash, scalding steam chaos.
• 0:55
  Speaker: Joe survived the blast, but he was terribly burned, his entire
• 0:58
  Speaker: body forever scarred.
• 1:00
  Speaker: But Joe's story wasn't finished.
• 1:02
  Speaker: Disfigured and struggling, he
• 1:04
  Speaker: made his way back to Evansville,
• 1:05
  Speaker: becoming a rag man, sifting
• 1:08
  Speaker: through the discards of the
• 1:09
  Speaker: city.
• 1:10
  Speaker: A solitary figure carrying the visible weight of his past.
• 1:13
  Speaker: A figure living on the fringes.
• 1:16
  Speaker: You might think historians there.
• 1:18
  Speaker: A life beaten down by unimaginable hardship.
• 1:20
  Speaker: But Joe carried something inside him deeper than any scar, a
• 1:24
  Speaker: refusal to be broken, and that same spirit that survived
• 1:27
  Speaker: slavery and fire would propel him towards a chance encounter
• 1:31
  Speaker: that led to a future no one could have imagined.
• 1:35
  Speaker: You're listening to River City Mystery, and this is the story
• 1:38
  Speaker: of Wild man Joe.
• 1:43
  Speaker: I see two horribly hideous looking, little dog like
• 1:47
  Speaker: creatures in this house.
• 1:49
  Speaker: It was a disembodied voice.
• 1:50
  Speaker: It was like a little child trying to scare us.
• 1:53
  Speaker: I don't know what this was.
• 1:56
  Speaker: I I've I've heard everything you can think of.
• 1:59
  Speaker: This was nothing I'm ever accustomed to.
• 2:02
  Speaker: Ever.
• 2:03
  Speaker: It was terrifying because it was like our.
• 2:06
  Speaker: There were so many people.
• 2:07
  Speaker: To where it was like, are we all seeing this?
• 2:10
  Speaker: So everybody is scared.
• 2:11
  Speaker: The kids are crying.
• 2:12
  Speaker: The women don't.
• 2:13
  Speaker: You know June's about to lose it.
• 2:15
  Speaker: And what are they to do?
• 2:18
  Speaker: These things will not die.
• 2:24
  Speaker: Welcome to another episode of River City Mystery.
• 2:26
  Speaker: I am your host, Matt Deig.
• 2:28
  Speaker: In this episode, we're going to look at how two incredibly
• 2:30
  Speaker: different lives shaped by vastly different worlds collided right
• 2:34
  Speaker: here in Evansville.
• 2:36
  Speaker: It's a story about strange twists of fate and the power of
• 2:39
  Speaker: just keeping on.
• 2:41
  Speaker: Our tale doesn't begin in Evansville, not initially.
• 2:44
  Speaker: We start with Jeremiah Kohler.
• 2:47
  Speaker: Dot Kohler, as he was widely
• 2:48
  Speaker: known in the circus world, was a
• 2:50
  Speaker: character as colorful and
• 2:51
  Speaker: unconventional as the sideshows
• 2:53
  Speaker: he ran before he became a
• 2:55
  Speaker: traveling showman, Koehler had a
• 2:56
  Speaker: different life, one rooted in
• 2:58
  Speaker: the bustling, sometimes rough
• 2:59
  Speaker: and tumble streets of Saint
• 3:00
  Speaker: Louis, Missouri.
• 3:02
  Speaker: There he was, a wealthy saloon keeper running a flourishing
• 3:05
  Speaker: establishment, and it seems Koehler's life in Saint Louis
• 3:08
  Speaker: wasn't without its problems.
• 3:10
  Speaker: He became entangled in serious
• 3:12
  Speaker: legal troubles, specifically a
• 3:14
  Speaker: robbery case involving a mail
• 3:15
  Speaker: carrier.
• 3:16
  Speaker: While the evidence didn't
• 3:17
  Speaker: suggest Kohler physically
• 3:19
  Speaker: participated in the robbery
• 3:20
  Speaker: itself, he was implicated and
• 3:21
  Speaker: eventually convicted of
• 3:22
  Speaker: complicity.
• 3:24
  Speaker: The prosecution argued that the
• 3:25
  Speaker: proceeds from the robbery were
• 3:26
  Speaker: divided at his saloon, and that
• 3:28
  Speaker: Koehler was aware of what had
• 3:29
  Speaker: transpired.
• 3:31
  Speaker: This conviction led to a
• 3:32
  Speaker: sentence of five years in the
• 3:33
  Speaker: state pen.
• 3:35
  Speaker: Beyond the world of saloons and courtrooms, Jerry Kohler had a
• 3:38
  Speaker: passion for the peculiar.
• 3:40
  Speaker: A knack for finding and presenting the extraordinary to
• 3:43
  Speaker: a curious public.
• 3:45
  Speaker: This led him into the realm of sideshows, and, most famously in
• 3:48
  Speaker: his early career, to his celebrated flea circus.
• 3:52
  Speaker: Yes, a flea circus.
• 3:55
  Speaker: Kohler staged his flea exhibit under strong magnifying glasses,
• 3:58
  Speaker: allowing audiences to marvel at the incredible feats performed
• 4:02
  Speaker: by his tiny troupe of fleas.
• 4:05
  Speaker: These weren't just random insect movements either.
• 4:08
  Speaker: Collars.
• 4:08
  Speaker: Fleas were trained.
• 4:10
  Speaker: They pulled miniature chariots made of gold and platinum,
• 4:13
  Speaker: crafted by a jeweler.
• 4:15
  Speaker: Rode in them, performed on tiny aerial rings, and even went
• 4:18
  Speaker: through wedding ceremonies.
• 4:21
  Speaker: Kohler.
• 4:21
  Speaker: The barker, would regale
• 4:23
  Speaker: audiences with entertaining
• 4:24
  Speaker: tales of how he acquired and
• 4:25
  Speaker: trained these intelligent
• 4:27
  Speaker: insects.
• 4:28
  Speaker: Claiming he had imported fifty
• 4:29
  Speaker: fleas from Berlin because only
• 4:31
  Speaker: German fleas had the necessary
• 4:33
  Speaker: intelligence, he described the
• 4:35
  Speaker: tedious process of training,
• 4:37
  Speaker: keeping them swaddled and
• 4:38
  Speaker: handling them with tweezers,
• 4:40
  Speaker: allowing them to feed for just
• 4:41
  Speaker: five minutes at a time on his
• 4:43
  Speaker: own arm.
• 4:45
  Speaker: Kohler act was so convincing he even got hauled into court once
• 4:48
  Speaker: by a rival who accused him of stealing a star performer, a
• 4:52
  Speaker: royal blooded flea named Prince Henry, supposedly the only one
• 4:56
  Speaker: of its kind to juggle.
• 4:58
  Speaker: This led to a truly unusual court appearance, where Kohler
• 5:01
  Speaker: had to defend himself by bringing his entire flea circus
• 5:04
  Speaker: before the judge.
• 5:05
  Speaker: He had to prove to the judge that Prince Henry wasn't the
• 5:08
  Speaker: only flea that could juggle.
• 5:09
  Speaker: In a scene straight out of a
• 5:11
  Speaker: sideshow tent, the court peered
• 5:12
  Speaker: through magnifying glasses as
• 5:14
  Speaker: collars.
• 5:14
  Speaker: Fleas impressively demonstrated
• 5:16
  Speaker: their juggling skills, proving
• 5:17
  Speaker: his innocence and securing his
• 5:19
  Speaker: release.
• 5:20
  Speaker: However, just when it seemed
• 5:22
  Speaker: that Doc had won the strangest
• 5:23
  Speaker: legal battle in the world,
• 5:24
  Speaker: tragedy struck his tiny
• 5:26
  Speaker: performers.
• 5:26
  Speaker: A sudden pestilence swept through his collection
• 5:28
  Speaker: overnight, tragically killing every one of the trained fleas,
• 5:32
  Speaker: bringing the curtain down permanently on Doc Coachella's
• 5:35
  Speaker: renowned flea circus.
• 5:37
  Speaker: The show was over, but Doc
• 5:39
  Speaker: Kohler, he was just getting
• 5:41
  Speaker: started.
• 5:42
  Speaker: Oh, and if you're wondering if
• 5:43
  Speaker: he actually did steal Prince
• 5:44
  Speaker: Henry, he later admitted that he
• 5:46
  Speaker: did.
• 5:50
  Speaker: Now let's turn to the other life in our story, one that began in
• 5:54
  Speaker: a place and circumstance starkly different from Saint Louis
• 5:57
  Speaker: saloons and flea circuses.
• 5:59
  Speaker: This is the life of Jo Rettig.
• 6:01
  Speaker: Jo was born into slavery on a plantation in North Carolina.
• 6:05
  Speaker: His early years were defined by
• 6:06
  Speaker: a life of forced labor
• 6:08
  Speaker: deprivation and the constant
• 6:09
  Speaker: threat of violence and family
• 6:10
  Speaker: separation.
• 6:12
  Speaker: It was an existence designed to strip away identity and hope.
• 6:16
  Speaker: Yet Joe endured.
• 6:18
  Speaker: The end of the Civil War brought
• 6:19
  Speaker: a seismic shift, offering the
• 6:21
  Speaker: promise of freedom and
• 6:22
  Speaker: self-determination.
• 6:24
  Speaker: Like hundreds of thousands of
• 6:25
  Speaker: formerly enslaved people, Joe
• 6:27
  Speaker: left the South seeking
• 6:28
  Speaker: opportunity and safety in the
• 6:29
  Speaker: North.
• 6:30
  Speaker: His journey brought him to Evansville, a growing city in
• 6:33
  Speaker: the Ohio River.
• 6:34
  Speaker: Here he found work on the steamboats that were the
• 6:37
  Speaker: lifeblood of commerce and travel in the region.
• 6:40
  Speaker: This was a step towards independence, a chance to earn a
• 6:43
  Speaker: wage and build a new life.
• 6:45
  Speaker: But the rivers, while offering
• 6:46
  Speaker: opportunity, were also fraught
• 6:47
  Speaker: with danger.
• 6:48
  Speaker: Steamboat travel in the nineteenth century was perilous
• 6:52
  Speaker: and boiler explosions were terrifyingly common occurrences.
• 6:55
  Speaker: Joe was aboard one such steamboat when disaster struck.
• 6:59
  Speaker: The boiler exploded in a violent, scalding blast.
• 7:02
  Speaker: Joe survived, but the explosion left him horribly and
• 7:05
  Speaker: permanently scarred His face and body were severely burned,
• 7:10
  Speaker: leaving disfiguring marks.
• 7:12
  Speaker: The black skin on parts of his
• 7:13
  Speaker: body was burned away, healing
• 7:15
  Speaker: into a reddish white scaled
• 7:17
  Speaker: surface.
• 7:18
  Speaker: Bearing these severe and very
• 7:20
  Speaker: visible scars, Jo returned to
• 7:21
  Speaker: the familiar streets of
• 7:22
  Speaker: Evansville.
• 7:23
  Speaker: In the years that followed, he made his living as a rag man.
• 7:27
  Speaker: This meant sifting through the
• 7:28
  Speaker: city's garbage, collecting
• 7:29
  Speaker: discarded items like paper,
• 7:31
  Speaker: rags, scrap metal, anything that
• 7:33
  Speaker: could be sold for a few pennies
• 7:35
  Speaker: to survive.
• 7:36
  Speaker: It was a life on the margins, a difficult, often solitary
• 7:40
  Speaker: existence marked by poverty and the stairs that his
• 7:43
  Speaker: disfigurement likely attracted in a society that often shunned
• 7:46
  Speaker: those who looked different.
• 7:47
  Speaker: His life seemed defined by
• 7:49
  Speaker: survival, hardship and living in
• 7:52
  Speaker: the shadows.
• 7:53
  Speaker: And this is where the universe
• 7:55
  Speaker: and its mysterious and often
• 7:56
  Speaker: unbelievable way brought these
• 7:58
  Speaker: two incredibly different lives
• 8:00
  Speaker: together.
• 8:01
  Speaker: Jerry old Doc Kohler, the showman with a past of Saint
• 8:05
  Speaker: Louis saloons, legal battles, and a deceased flea circus found
• 8:09
  Speaker: himself in Evansville and he spotted none other than Joe
• 8:12
  Speaker: Rettig, the rag man, the survivor of slavery in a
• 8:15
  Speaker: horrific steamboat explosion whose body bore the undeniable
• 8:19
  Speaker: dramatic evidence of his past.
• 8:21
  Speaker: Kohler saw Joe not just as a
• 8:23
  Speaker: man, though, but as a potential
• 8:26
  Speaker: attraction.
• 8:27
  Speaker: He saw the scars, the unusual
• 8:29
  Speaker: appearance left by the Burns,
• 8:30
  Speaker: and immediately conceived of his
• 8:31
  Speaker: next exhibit, A Wild Man
• 8:33
  Speaker: captured from the west coast of
• 8:35
  Speaker: the Philippines.
• 8:36
  Speaker: It was a classic sideshow trope,
• 8:38
  Speaker: playing on the audience
• 8:39
  Speaker: fascination with the exotic and
• 8:41
  Speaker: the savage.
• 8:42
  Speaker: Kohler approached Joe with an offer.
• 8:45
  Speaker: And just imagine that conversation you've got like
• 8:47
  Speaker: this season showman, smooth talking, presenting a life
• 8:51
  Speaker: dramatically different from sifting through trash and offer
• 8:55
  Speaker: to leave behind the alleys and step onto a stage and offer to
• 8:59
  Speaker: turn the very disfigurement that marked him as an outcast into
• 9:03
  Speaker: the source of his livelihood.
• 9:05
  Speaker: Joe Rettig accepted.
• 9:08
  Speaker: And so Joe Reddig the Ragman was transformed into Wild Man Joe.
• 9:13
  Speaker: The act was a complete
• 9:15
  Speaker: fabrication, a performance
• 9:17
  Speaker: designed purely for
• 9:18
  Speaker: sensationalism.
• 9:20
  Speaker: But Joe's physical appearance, a result of actual trauma, gave it
• 9:23
  Speaker: a disturbing authenticity.
• 9:25
  Speaker: For the role, Joe's head was often shaved, leaving only a
• 9:28
  Speaker: small tuft of hair standing upright over his forehead.
• 9:31
  Speaker: He wore large rings in his ears
• 9:33
  Speaker: and nose and a minimal,
• 9:35
  Speaker: sometimes described as scant or
• 9:36
  Speaker: grassy costume.
• 9:38
  Speaker: His skin was sometimes smeared with many colors of paint to
• 9:40
  Speaker: enhance the savage look.
• 9:43
  Speaker: Ole Dot, Kohler and the other barkers would deliver elaborate,
• 9:46
  Speaker: often outlandish spiels to the waiting crowds outside the tent.
• 9:50
  Speaker: They claimed Wildman Joe was a ferocious savage, captured by
• 9:53
  Speaker: explorers in remote jungles from the west coast of the
• 9:56
  Speaker: Philippines to the wilds of Borneo or Madagascar.
• 10:00
  Speaker: They'd spend tales of him being
• 10:01
  Speaker: acquired at a very high price
• 10:03
  Speaker: from the Smithsonian
• 10:04
  Speaker: Institution, claiming he
• 10:06
  Speaker: thirsted for human blood and
• 10:07
  Speaker: lived on raw meat inside the
• 10:09
  Speaker: tent.
• 10:10
  Speaker: Joe would be presented in a pit or behind bars, often chained
• 10:13
  Speaker: hand and foot, for the audience's perceived safety.
• 10:17
  Speaker: Joe's performance involved
• 10:18
  Speaker: acting the part of the savage
• 10:19
  Speaker: captive.
• 10:20
  Speaker: He would snarl, growl and roar
• 10:22
  Speaker: sounds that Koehler noted sent a
• 10:24
  Speaker: shiver through many in the
• 10:25
  Speaker: audience.
• 10:26
  Speaker: He would eat raw meat, poke
• 10:27
  Speaker: through the bars with a
• 10:28
  Speaker: pitchfork.
• 10:29
  Speaker: Kohler candidly admitted that
• 10:30
  Speaker: they often gave Joe bad whiskey
• 10:32
  Speaker: because it made him actually
• 10:34
  Speaker: wild.
• 10:35
  Speaker: When the whiskey made him sleepy
• 10:36
  Speaker: and less performative, they
• 10:37
  Speaker: would sometimes prod him with
• 10:38
  Speaker: pitchforks to get him to act up,
• 10:40
  Speaker: Koehler recounted with
• 10:41
  Speaker: amusement.
• 10:41
  Speaker: How audiences would cringe and
• 10:43
  Speaker: turn pale, honestly fearing Joe
• 10:46
  Speaker: might break his chains and
• 10:47
  Speaker: attack them.
• 10:48
  Speaker: It was a performance built on exploitation, fear and a
• 10:52
  Speaker: completely fabricated narrative, using Joe's real scars as the
• 10:55
  Speaker: primary authenticating element.
• 10:58
  Speaker: But despite the ethically
• 10:59
  Speaker: questionable nature of the act,
• 11:00
  Speaker: joining the circus changed the
• 11:02
  Speaker: trajectory of Joe's life
• 11:03
  Speaker: dramatically.
• 11:04
  Speaker: He didn't just perform for Doc Koehler.
• 11:06
  Speaker: Briefly, Joe Redick became a professional sideshow performer
• 11:10
  Speaker: known as Wildman Joe.
• 11:11
  Speaker: For many years he traveled with various circuses, leaving behind
• 11:15
  Speaker: the life of a rag man.
• 11:16
  Speaker: When the show called, he joined
• 11:18
  Speaker: circuses season after season,
• 11:19
  Speaker: earning a salary that, while
• 11:21
  Speaker: perhaps not large, one report
• 11:23
  Speaker: mentions twenty five dollars a
• 11:24
  Speaker: week at the time, which was
• 11:25
  Speaker: about eight hundred dollars in
• 11:26
  Speaker: today's dollars.
• 11:27
  Speaker: Not bad.
• 11:28
  Speaker: It was a consistent income
• 11:29
  Speaker: compared to the uncertainty of
• 11:31
  Speaker: collecting scraps.
• 11:33
  Speaker: Joe's career took him far.
• 11:35
  Speaker: He performed for prominent circus owners.
• 11:37
  Speaker: His travels as Wild man Joe even
• 11:39
  Speaker: took him across international
• 11:40
  Speaker: borders.
• 11:41
  Speaker: He performed for a circus in
• 11:42
  Speaker: Canada, standing before massive
• 11:44
  Speaker: audiences.
• 11:45
  Speaker: Imagine that a man born into the
• 11:47
  Speaker: utter powerlessness of slavery
• 11:48
  Speaker: in the American South, surviving
• 11:50
  Speaker: a horrific accident that left
• 11:51
  Speaker: him disfigured, scraping by as a
• 11:54
  Speaker: rag man, eventually finding
• 11:55
  Speaker: himself on a stage before thirty
• 11:57
  Speaker: thousand people in another
• 11:58
  Speaker: country.
• 12:00
  Speaker: The story of Joe Rettig wild man Joe is undoubtedly difficult.
• 12:04
  Speaker: It forces us to confront the harsh realities of post-Civil
• 12:07
  Speaker: war life for African Americans.
• 12:09
  Speaker: Yet beneath the layers of
• 12:10
  Speaker: hardship and problematic nature
• 12:12
  Speaker: of his act lies a story of
• 12:14
  Speaker: astounding resilience.
• 12:16
  Speaker: Consider the path Jo walked from the chains of slavery, where his
• 12:19
  Speaker: very identity was denied through the sudden trauma of a steamboat
• 12:23
  Speaker: explosion that left him scarred for life, to the difficult,
• 12:26
  Speaker: anonymous existence as a ragman scraping by to survive.
• 12:30
  Speaker: Any one of these challenges could break a normal person.
• 12:33
  Speaker: But Jo, he endured.
• 12:36
  Speaker: And when a bizarre, unexpected opportunity arose, born from a
• 12:40
  Speaker: chance encounter with a showman whose own life was a series of
• 12:43
  Speaker: unpredictable turns, Jo took it.
• 12:46
  Speaker: He leveraged his very scars into a means of survival.
• 12:50
  Speaker: He stepped out of the shadows
• 12:52
  Speaker: and onto the stage, performing
• 12:53
  Speaker: for thousands.
• 12:55
  Speaker: His journey is a powerful
• 12:56
  Speaker: illustration of how the human
• 12:58
  Speaker: spirit can find a way to
• 12:59
  Speaker: persist, to adapt, and even find
• 13:01
  Speaker: success in the face of
• 13:03
  Speaker: unimaginable adversity.
• 13:05
  Speaker: From the confines of a
• 13:06
  Speaker: plantation to the spectacle of
• 13:08
  Speaker: the sideshow.
• 13:09
  Speaker: Jo Reddick's life is a testament to an unbreakable will.
• 13:13
  Speaker: a man who, against all odds, never gave up.
• 13:18
  Speaker: And as far as what became of Joe
• 13:20
  Speaker: Rettig, wild man Joe, there are
• 13:21
  Speaker: no records that I could find
• 13:23
  Speaker: that show.
• 13:23
  Speaker: What became of him?
• 13:24
  Speaker: If you have any information,
• 13:26
  Speaker: feel free to share on my discord
• 13:28
  Speaker: at riverCityMystery.com/discord, or you can
• 13:31
  Speaker: just contact me at rivercitymystery dot
• 13:32
  Speaker: com.
• 13:34
  Speaker: I'd love to hear what information you have.
• 13:36
  Speaker: An old dot Kohler.
• 13:38
  Speaker: He passed away in February of nineteen nineteen.
• 13:40
  Speaker: An article written at the time says that he was buried at the
• 13:43
  Speaker: Oak Hill Cemetery in Evansville.
• 13:45
  Speaker: The article states that he left
• 13:46
  Speaker: no relatives but a host of
• 13:48
  Speaker: friends made by cheerful
• 13:49
  Speaker: disposition.
• 13:50
  Speaker: Kohler could laugh the hardest
• 13:52
  Speaker: when his pockets were empty and
• 13:53
  Speaker: a feed seemed the remotest
• 13:55
  Speaker: possibility.
• 13:56
  Speaker: The article says that the old
• 13:57
  Speaker: circus man was fifty six years
• 13:59
  Speaker: old, and prior to his circus
• 14:00
  Speaker: days, ran one of the biggest and
• 14:02
  Speaker: most flourishing saloons in
• 14:03
  Speaker: Saint Louis.
• 14:04
  Speaker: At one time he was wealthy.
• 14:05
  Speaker: He died penniless.
• 14:08
  Speaker: And that brings this episode to a close.
• 14:10
  Speaker: I hope you enjoyed listening to the story of Wild Man Joe.
• 14:13
  Speaker: Until next time.
• 14:14
  Speaker: Take care.