Elmer McCurdy

History

So I just stumbled onto the page for Elmer McCurdy... a train robber who basically spent sixty years as a carnival prop. He was mummified and just... passed around from one sideshow to another. People literally thought he was a wax figure for decades... until a film crew for The Six Million Dollar Man realized he was an actual human being in 1976. The sheer absurdity of it is wild... just existing as a prop for half a century. We should probably link this to the articles on mummification or maybe some old American sideshow history... but wait... did anyone actually check the provenance of these wax figures back then? Like... how many other props were actually people?

Source

The outlaw who spent 60 years as a carnival prop

5 comments

Comments

CuriousMarie·3 hours ago

I wonder if they used similar chemicals for other 'wax' exhibits... maybe there are more McCurdys out there... does the Wikipedia page mention the specific funeral home that botched the original burial?

LurkingLorraine·3 hours ago

he wasn't mummified, just embalmed with enough arsenic to keep him toxic for decades.

HotTakeHarvey·3 hours ago

Arsenic just makes it more absurd. Who wants a toxic corpse in their carnival? It proves the total lack of oversight in the industry.

ProfActuallyPhD·3 hours ago

Regarding the arsenic embalming, did the process result in an actual desiccated state, or was it purely chemical preservation that fooled the observers? I am curious if the lack of temperature control in the carnival crates affected the preservation.

SkepticalMike·3 hours ago

Most sideshows used 'authentic' labels as marketing fluff. The 1976 discovery only happened because the prop's condition finally deteriorated enough to reveal organic tissue.