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Wild Wild West? · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of I
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  Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is full
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  Speaker 1: of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Oftentimes, when people die, we erect a lasting
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  Speaker 1: tribute to their memory. It could be a headstone in
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  Speaker 1: a graveyard, or a small shrine in our home, or
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  Speaker 1: even a statue in a park. Every person, famous or not,
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  Speaker 1: affects the world around them, for better or for worse,
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  Speaker 1: and those who have left their mark deserve to be remembered.
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  Speaker 1: But sometimes we don't get it right the first time,
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  Speaker 1: and the way we honor someone we lost needs to
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  Speaker 1: do over. It started with a mob, but not an
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  Speaker 1: angry mob, and inspired one. The people of Boonsboro, Maryland,
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  Speaker 1: had all congregated on July four, eight seven, in the
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  Speaker 1: town square with one job to build a monument. Two
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  Speaker 1: years earlier, the Maryland General Assembly had voted to fund
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  Speaker 1: the project with money earned through the state's lottery program.
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  Speaker 1: Many initiatives were given budgets that way, with players buying
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  Speaker 1: tickets printed with numbers on them, just as they do today.
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  Speaker 1: The structure was to be made of stone and rise
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  Speaker 1: to the sky like a finger pointing towards the heavens.
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  Speaker 1: The people chose a perfect spot for their creation in
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  Speaker 1: the nearby woods and got to work all day. They
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  Speaker 1: gathered stones and stacked them, creating a base measuring fifty
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  Speaker 1: four feet in circumference. On top of that sat a
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  Speaker 1: tower fifteen feet tall. Halfway through the day, a local
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  Speaker 1: reverend delivered an impassioned speech to keep the builders motivated.
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  Speaker 1: They must have worked too, because they had finished fifty
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  Speaker 1: percent of the tower by four pm. With the day's
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  Speaker 1: work complete, someone stood up and read the Declaration of
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  Speaker 1: Independence to the crowd. Three veterans of the Revolutionary War
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  Speaker 1: then fired their rifles in salute. It was a day
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  Speaker 1: of celebration, but the rest of the tower would have
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  Speaker 1: to wait until a few months later, as most of
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  Speaker 1: the workmen were going to be busy until then. Everyone
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  Speaker 1: returned in September and construction was finally completed. By the
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  Speaker 1: time it was done, the Boonsboro Tower measured thirty feet high,
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  Speaker 1: a testament not just to the man they were honoring,
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  Speaker 1: but to their patriotism and work ethic as well. According
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  Speaker 1: to William Bell, a journalist with the town's Torchlight newspaper,
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  Speaker 1: Boonsboro citizens were filled with a spirit of zeal and
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  Speaker 1: ardor so much so that it didn't matter that the
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  Speaker 1: tower wasn't precise and its measurements or particularly good looking.
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  Speaker 1: It was sturdy and made with the best of intentions.
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  Speaker 1: Bell went on to write, we do not calculate that,
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  Speaker 1: when finished, it will give this town immortal glory, but
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  Speaker 1: we do sincerely hope that it will be the means
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  Speaker 1: of stirring up the fading gratitude of the people. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: that gratitude didn't last long. The tower had been built
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  Speaker 1: with dry laid stone, meaning it lacked mortar to bind
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  Speaker 1: the masonry together. The monument was mostly destroyed by the
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  Speaker 1: time the Civil War had begun. Union soldiers used the
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  Speaker 1: small portion remaining as a signal station. After Confederate troops
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  Speaker 1: severed their telegraph lines. Someone would stand on top of
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  Speaker 1: the tower's ruins and wave flags in different formations to
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  Speaker 1: convey secret messages to their allies. It wouldn't be restored
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  Speaker 1: until eighteen eighty two, when a local organization raised the
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  Speaker 1: funds necessary to fix it up, but they did more
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  Speaker 1: than repair it, and they upgraded it. The structure now
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  Speaker 1: boasted whitewashed walls and a lookout tower on top that
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  Speaker 1: was made of steel. Sadly, it wasn't enough to keep
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  Speaker 1: the monument from falling into disrepair yet again. A little
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  Speaker 1: over twenty years later, the tower suffered from a lightning
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  Speaker 1: strike so severe that half of it turned to rubble.
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  Speaker 1: A rumor began to circulate around town that a father
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  Speaker 1: had used dynamite to blow up the monument because his
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  Speaker 1: daughters kept meeting boys there behind his back. A second
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  Speaker 1: restoration commenced in the nineteen thirties, just over one years
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  Speaker 1: after the structure was first built. The land was then
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  Speaker 1: bought by a local historical society and turned into a
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  Speaker 1: state park in nineteen thirty four. As for the monument itself,
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  Speaker 1: it was rebuilt with cement and mortar, designed to look
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  Speaker 1: like it did after it was first completed in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: just a whole lot stronger. But why was so much
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  Speaker 1: money and effort spent on preserving this one stone structure?
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  Speaker 1: Why was it so important? Because it was built in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seven to honor the United States first President George Washington,
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  Speaker 1: which means that the Boonsboro Tower was the first ever
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  Speaker 1: Washington monument, built five decades earlier than the gleaming white
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  Speaker 1: Obelisque in Washington, d c. That everyone knows today. The
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  Speaker 1: sun glared overhead as the two gun slingers stepped into
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  Speaker 1: the road poised to fire at each other. It was hot,
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  Speaker 1: with barely a breeze as crowds watched with bated breath
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  Speaker 1: for the battle to begin. It was noon in Palisade, Nevada,
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  Speaker 1: and the locals were about to do what they did
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  Speaker 1: best perform. If you visit Palisade today, there isn't much there.
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  Speaker 1: The town was in Eureka County in northeastern Nevada, like
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  Speaker 1: so many towns in the Western front Here, though, it
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  Speaker 1: was formulated, plotted, and raised by the railroad companies that
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  Speaker 1: controlled large portions of westward expansion Central Pacific Railroad to
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  Speaker 1: be specific. The possibility of a railroad that connected the
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  Speaker 1: East and the West coasts was proposed in the eighteen forties.
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  Speaker 1: Not one to let those pisky things like treaties and
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  Speaker 1: territorial rights stand in their way, railroad executives began petitioning
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  Speaker 1: Congress that's August body refused to sanction the plan for
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  Speaker 1: several years until the Railroad Act of eighteen sixty to
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  Speaker 1: finally put full government support behind the Transcontinental Railroad. The
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  Speaker 1: Central Pacific Railroad Company of California would meet the newly
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  Speaker 1: created Union Pacific Railroad in the middle of the country.
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  Speaker 1: Construction began in eighteen sixty three, using poor labor practices
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  Speaker 1: and underpaid labor, largely immigrants from China and Ireland. The
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  Speaker 1: government and railroad companies sat down and, in conjunction with
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  Speaker 1: the Homestead Act of eighteen sixty two, plotted out where
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  Speaker 1: railroad stations would be and the towns that would surround them.
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  Speaker 1: So many towns were raised on the frontier, and all
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  Speaker 1: of them were a gamble. It was a question of
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  Speaker 1: risk and reward. Would this little community succeed or die
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  Speaker 1: in the face of all that hostile environment, the tough land,
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  Speaker 1: and crippling economic conditions that would be thrown at them.
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  Speaker 1: The cycle of boom and bust was kick started by
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  Speaker 1: gold fever in the eighteen forties. Towns seemed to rise
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  Speaker 1: and fall overnight as news of gold spread across the
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  Speaker 1: largely unexplored western ontier. Settlers looking for a better life
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  Speaker 1: quickly established new towns, and then railroads moved in, which
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  Speaker 1: brings us back to Palisade. It was founded in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty eight to be a stop on the Central Pacific Railroad,
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  Speaker 1: which would help bring people to and from Nevada and
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  Speaker 1: transport the wealth from the nearby silver mines. As the
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  Speaker 1: town grew and as more people began traveling to San
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  Speaker 1: Francisco or Chicago, Palisade became a convenient rest stop, and
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  Speaker 1: then a funny thing started to happen. Slowly, but surely,
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  Speaker 1: Stories started to trickle back east from letters sent by
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  Speaker 1: loved ones, columns and newspapers, and telegrams of the bizarre
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  Speaker 1: experiences the wild West had to offer. As the West
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  Speaker 1: grew thick with settlers and railroads became more common, so
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  Speaker 1: did stories of bank robberies, train thefts, and outlaws who
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  Speaker 1: seemed to be roaming the territories by the dozen. These
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  Speaker 1: stories took on a whole new life with the creation
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  Speaker 1: of the dime Store novel in the eighteen sixties. These
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  Speaker 1: novels were, in a word, lured. They over exaggerated stories
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  Speaker 1: of cowboys, explorers, and bandits, and with the increase in
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  Speaker 1: literacy after the Civil War, the books flew off the shelves.
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  Speaker 1: Soon it wasn't just settlers and their families heading west.
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  Speaker 1: There were tourists going to visit friends and family members
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  Speaker 1: out there, hoping to see some of the excitement they've
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  Speaker 1: been promised. Cowboys and gunfights and wolves and lawlessness. But
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  Speaker 1: they weren't getting any of that, and it turned out
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  Speaker 1: the wild West wasn't nearly as wild as visitors had
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  Speaker 1: been led to believe. The people of Palisade noticed the
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  Speaker 1: grumbles of discontent by those stepping off the trains at
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  Speaker 1: their station and complaining at lunch in their restaurants. As
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  Speaker 1: you might imagine, no one wanted to lose the revenue
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  Speaker 1: that was brought in by the travelers, and while they
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  Speaker 1: were pretty sure that people weren't going to stop coming,
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  Speaker 1: no one wanted to test that theory. So the locals
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  Speaker 1: came up with a plan to give them exactly what
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  Speaker 1: they wanted. In the early eighteen seventies, when visitors rolled
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  Speaker 1: into Palisade, they could expect to see lawmen and outlaws
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  Speaker 1: having shootouts, watching bodies hit the floor, seeing daring escapes
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  Speaker 1: from bank robberies, and anything else that could say their
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  Speaker 1: morbid curiosity. It was a pretty impressive operation, made even
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  Speaker 1: more so because the whole town was in on it.
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  Speaker 1: They used blanks during gun battles, animal blood from the
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  Speaker 1: slaughterhouse for their grizzly death scenes, and even worked with
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  Speaker 1: the local native peoples to perform raids. All of this
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  Speaker 1: law and order hoop Law and Palisade didn't even have
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  Speaker 1: their own sheriff. Over the course of these re enactments,
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  Speaker 1: there were more people killed in Palisade than actually lived there,
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  Speaker 1: and none of the travelers noticed that they were never
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  Speaker 1: targeted by these ruthless outlaws. These performances went on for
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  Speaker 1: three years and entertained thousands with the drama that tourists
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  Speaker 1: expected to see. Slowly, fewer and fewer people passed through Palisade,
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  Speaker 1: and like so many other boom towns on the Western frontier,
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  Speaker 1: it became a ghost town not long after the railroad
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  Speaker 1: closed in the nineteen thirties. After that, the buildings disappeared,
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  Speaker 1: and all that was left was the land. No more
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  Speaker 1: was ever heard from Palisade and their outlaws, well, except
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  Speaker 1: for a local legend about an attempt to assassinate President
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  Speaker 1: Hoover with dynamites in ninety two. But friends, I think
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  Speaker 1: that's a curious story for another time. I hope you've
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
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  Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
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  Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
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  Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Ye