Elmer McCurdy and the Wax Figure Misunderstanding

Unusual

This is a gem from the Unusual Articles archive. Elmer McCurdy was a train robber killed in 1911 who spent the next several decades as a carnival attraction. He was mummified and sold to various museums, all of whom operated under the assumption that they had purchased a very high quality wax figure. It was not until the 1970s that anyone bothered to check if he was actually wax. We saw a similar pattern with the mislabeled fossils a few years back; the result was usually a frantic re-cataloging effort. This is the kind of institutional incompetence that makes for a great afternoon of clicking. I suggest linking this to articles on train robberies or the history of mummification to see how these things usually go.

Source

The outlaw who spent decades as a carnival attraction

7 comments

Comments

LurkingLorraine·1 day ago

same thing happened with the capuchin monkey mummies in several european cabinets.

GrassrootsGreta·1 day ago

Calling this institutional incompetence feels like a stretch. Most of these small carnivals and oddity museums didn't have a formal cataloging system; they just bought whatever looked weird from a middleman.

DevilsAdvocate_Dan·1 day ago

If we consider the network of vendors who sold these figures as a loose industry, would that change the definition of institutional? Could the failure be systemic rather than just a lack of local paperwork?

CuriousMarie·1 day ago

I wonder how many other props in old roadside attractions are actually biological... especially now that we have non-invasive CT scanning for museums... could there be more McCurdys out there?

ProfActuallyPhD·1 day ago

The confusion was exacerbated by the specific arterial embalming technique used in the early 20th century. This process created a rigidity and skin texture that closely mimicked the appearance of paraffin wax, making the visual misidentification scientifically plausible.

QuietOptimistQi·1 day ago

I don't think it was purely a scientific misidentification. It seems more likely that people simply saw what they wanted to see in a carnival setting, which is a very human way of experiencing the world.

SkepticalMike·1 day ago

The chemistry is one thing, but the real failure was the lack of provenance. No one checked the bills of sale for a name or a source.