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You're listening to American Shadows, a

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production of iHeartRadio and Grimm

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and Mild from Aar and Manky.

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Humans have always explored.

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We've gone to the depths of the ocean and

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the reaches of space. It's brought

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us to new lands or new to us and

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into contact with all different kinds

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of life, and that contact

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with the other, the unfamiliar

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has often seemed scary. Just

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take a look at old maps drawn up by

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Western European travelers as

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ships began to sail around the world. The

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sailors brought home fantastic stories

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that were almost too big to believe. They

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talked about monsters, and about savages,

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and often about cannibals.

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The term was coined by none other than Christopher

1:00

Columbus. He wrote in his diaries

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about his alleged encounters with them,

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describing cannibals as a dog headed

1:07

men who ate human beings. Amerigo

1:10

Vespucci did the same during his explorations

1:13

of the continents that now bear a derivation

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of his name, and when Queen Isabella

1:18

of Spain legalized the enslavement

1:20

of Native Americans in fifteen oh three,

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she did so by alleging that they were

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cannibals too. What's

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true is that many cultures have participated

1:30

in cannibalism long before records

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existed. We have evidence

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stretching back over one hundred thousand years

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that tells us as much. Today,

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the idea of eating a loved one or enemy

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might give you the itck like nothing else,

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But we have to understand that not

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all cannibalism was created equal

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across the world. Endo cannibalism

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has been a grief practice in

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which one's community consumed parts

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of their body. Rather than an

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act of destruction, it was a profound

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celebration of a life in which the

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dead carried on in the living. Exocannibalism

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is the act of eating those outside of one's

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community. This flavor

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of consumption, if you'll forgive the pun, was

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also marked by community ritual. Seldom

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was anyone eating someone else without

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a lot of care. It's

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very easy to point fingers at people who

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aren't us, to say, but we

2:26

aren't like them. But where do you

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draw the line and how do you decide

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what's monstrous? What

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Queen Isabella and her ilk failed to acknowledge

2:36

was the widely accepted practice of medicinal

2:38

cannibalism in Europe, it

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leaned on the beliefs of sympathetic magic,

2:43

or that like serves like. For

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example, drinking from a human

2:48

skull was said to help with headaches,

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blood was said to help with bleeding.

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Rendered human fat had a number of uses.

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Executed bodies were the most highly prized,

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as it was believed that a quick traumatic

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death gave no time for a life force

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to slowly seep away. The

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hypocrisy is glaring. When

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colonists came to the New World, they

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were regaled with tales of indigenous

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cannibals. Cannibalism was practiced

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in some Native American societies, particularly

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in some groups in the North and West, but

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for many it was never simply

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to fill their bellies in a

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stroke of irony. It was likely the English

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settlers who became the first gastronomic

3:31

cannibals in that part of the world. The

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winter of sixteen oh nine to sixteen

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ten in Jamestown, Virginia has

3:39

been remembered as the Starving Time.

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A seven year drought, fractured leadership,

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and a siege by Powaton warriors

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had created a fatal predicament for

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the colony. In that period,

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about three quarters of Jamestown ended

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up starving to death. Of the sixty

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or so settlers who remained, they scraped

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by on whatever they could find, including

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the flesh of their recent debt. Archaeological

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evidence of these years was discovered as recently

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as twenty thirteen, when human bones

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bearing the marks of butchering were discovered

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in a trash pit. It was one of

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many pits and one of many bodies

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that have been found at the site. America

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has long been a land of cannibals,

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but that distinction has never really

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belonged to one group. Despite

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what European colonists thought about themselves,

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they were certainly not above cannibalizing

4:32

their peers, as the incident in Jamestown

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proves to us. So what

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really separates the monstrous from

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the rest of us? If anything

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at all? I'm Lorn Vogelbaum,

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Welcome to American shadows. The

4:54

promise of hidden riches sang like

4:56

a siren, and hungry prospectors

4:58

came from all over to heed its call.

5:02

In November of eighteen seventy three,

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a party of twenty one men left Utah

5:06

to search for silver in the San

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Juan Mountains of Colorado. In

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this group was the thirty one year old Pennsylvania

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born drifter named Alfred Packer.

5:17

He was a curious man, this Alfred.

5:20

He was a little bit odd. It was hard

5:22

to know who he really was. He

5:25

prided himself on being a great entertainer,

5:27

but his tall tales often fell short

5:30

of convincing. He had

5:32

a way of contradicting himself and just

5:35

seemed to try a little too hard

5:37

to sell himself, often alterating

5:39

important details about his life in the process.

5:43

What we also do know as fact

5:46

is that he was discharged from the Civil War

5:48

on the account of being a severe epileptic,

5:51

experiencing bouts of seizure as many

5:53

as three times every forty eight hours,

5:56

and he had worked all sorts of odd jobs,

5:59

but it's likely it was hard for him to hold anything

6:01

down for a significant period of time.

6:04

Taking bromide seemed to help his condition,

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but they weren't totally curative. This

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was a part of the story he was always

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sure to leave out. Packer

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had volunteered to lead the silver

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hunting party. He set off with confidence

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with twenty men in tow into the dense

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forests and jagged mountains of Colorado.

6:24

There actually wasn't even a set

6:26

path to their destination. Any

6:28

expedition to that part of the country was sure

6:31

to be a treacherous one, and it was

6:33

imperative that the guide knew the land

6:35

well. What his team

6:37

didn't know was that Alfred wasn't the expert

6:39

on the Colorado Mountains that he claimed to be.

6:42

Even so, the first part of their trip was

6:45

fairly smooth. Spirits were high,

6:47

folks were filled with hope. They

6:50

had big dreams about what they'd find in the

6:52

mountains and what they'd do with it all once they

6:54

got home. But it wasn't

6:56

long before things began to unravel.

7:00

Into their journey, Packer had an epileptic

7:02

episode and fell into the campfire.

7:05

He was saved by a companion, but when he came

7:07

to he brushed it off, claiming

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it was the first seizure he had ever experienced.

7:12

But he soon began to have seizures several

7:15

times a day, and the other travelers

7:17

began to suspect that he was lying

7:19

to them. It soon became

7:21

clear that there were other things that Packer

7:24

couldn't hear himself of. He

7:26

was outed as an habitual petty

7:28

thief. He was also quarrelsome whiny

7:31

and apparently greedy with rations.

7:34

He was said to be surly and bragged

7:36

about a jail stint he served after buying

7:38

the services of frontier sex workers.

7:41

But Packer was no dummy.

7:43

He knew his party had grown to disdain him,

7:46

and he felt the same right back. He

7:48

called this a cordial hatred and

7:51

was happy to continue on. Others

7:54

didn't share that feeling. By

7:56

the time they crossed the Green River, about

7:58

eighty five miles from the Colorado border,

8:00

the party had come to the mounting realization

8:03

that Packer had been lying to them about knowing

8:05

where he was headed. Horror

8:08

and rage gripped the men. All

8:10

of the other issues they could live with, this

8:13

they quite literally could not. On

8:16

January twenty fifth of eighteen forty seven,

8:18

the party was surrounded by a group of

8:21

Ute warriors as they approached the Colorado

8:23

border. The party was on reservation

8:25

land, and one account tells that

8:27

the Ute took pity on the sorry,

8:30

hungry prospectors in front of them.

8:33

Chief Urray, who was present that day,

8:35

offered to take the men in. He warned

8:38

them not to continue and offered them his

8:40

hospitality until the spring thaw

8:42

came. For a few weeks.

8:44

The party stayed with the ute, but

8:47

they soon grew Antsy worried

8:49

that the riches would be gone if they waited until

8:51

spring to set out again. They calculated

8:54

that they only had forty more miles to

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go. On February

8:58

second, five men broke from the park. Alfred

9:01

tried to join them, but was threatened with a gun.

9:04

He would get his chance a week later, when

9:06

five other prospectors decided to leave

9:08

the Ute encampment. Chief

9:11

Yurey told them not to go, and

9:13

that he wouldn't even allow for his own people

9:15

to try. But the prospectors

9:18

refused his advice, and Urrey

9:20

reluctantly drew them a map in the snow. He

9:23

illustrated two trails over the mountains,

9:25

a lower trail which was eighty miles long,

9:28

and an upper trail, which was only forty

9:30

miles. The party set

9:32

out for the upper trail in the dead of winter,

9:35

without a single snowshoe in sight.

9:38

Two and a half months later, on the morning of

9:40

April sixteenth, Alfred Packer

9:42

wandered out of the mountains and into

9:44

the Las Pignos Indian Agency. He

9:47

was alone, with none of his companions

9:49

anywhere to be found.

9:58

The winters in the San Juan Mountains are

10:00

long, dark and harsh.

10:03

The peaks are impassable and inhospitable,

10:06

which are both very bad things if you

10:08

find yourself stranded among them.

10:11

By some stroke of luck that felt

10:13

nothing short of divine intervention, Alfred

10:16

Packer had made his way out of the mountains

10:19

with just a backpack and a rifle. He

10:21

was ragged and ravaged, but otherwise

10:24

appeared to be in good health. He'd

10:26

endured temperatures down to negative fifty

10:28

degrees fahrenheit in the wild for over

10:31

fifty seven days, and people

10:33

were simply impressed. His

10:35

party was lost. Packer told the folks

10:37

at the agency, Oh, this surprised no

10:40

one. What did surprise

10:42

them, though, was that he didn't appear to

10:44

be hungry. In fact, he

10:46

looked rather well fed. According

10:49

to one story, rather than scarfing

10:52

down a breakfast upon arrival, he opted

10:54

to throw back a few shots of whiskey instead.

10:57

It's then that a story began to come

11:00

now. He claimed that

11:02

soon after he and the other men left

11:04

Chief Uray's encampment, he began

11:06

to suffer from frostbitten feet and snow

11:09

blindness. His traveling companions

11:11

elected to leave him behind with a rifle

11:13

and supplies. Where

11:15

they ended up, Packer said, well, he

11:18

could only assume that they had died from the cold

11:20

themselves. But as

11:22

fate would have it, Parker wasn't

11:24

the only one who showed up at the agency that

11:26

day. A Preston Nutter, a

11:28

doctor Cooper, and a fellow by the name

11:31

of Italian Tom, all members

11:33

of the crew who stayed behind at the ute camp,

11:35

appeared just hours after Alfred

11:38

did. This did

11:40

not please him. In fact, Parker

11:42

grew visibly upset at their arrival.

11:45

Nutter asked where the rest of his party was,

11:47

and Packer repeated his story. Packer

11:51

began to move quickly. He started

11:53

talking about returning home to Pennsylvania and

11:55

sold his Winchester rifle for ten dollars.

11:58

He and three other men to hit the road

12:01

and head to the nearby town of Swatch.

12:04

During their trek, Nutter poked at

12:06

Packer. He had long been suspicious

12:09

of him, and the intervening months apart

12:11

did nothing to change that. Why

12:13

he asked Parker did he have the knife that

12:15

had belonged to Frank, one of their lost

12:18

prospectors, and Packer quickly

12:20

said that Frank stuck it in a tree and left it there,

12:22

which of course made no sense. Once

12:25

they arrived in Sewatch, Packer aroused

12:28

even more suspicion. For a guy

12:30

who was constantly broke, he seemed

12:32

to have suddenly, somehow

12:34

come into some serious money. He

12:37

ended up spending almost two thousand dollars

12:39

in today's money at a local saloon over a

12:41

two week period. With every

12:43

passing alcohol soaked night, Packer's

12:46

story got more dramatic and more

12:48

unbelievable. The inconsistencies

12:51

were glaring, and the looks began

12:53

to fly. But Packer

12:56

wasn't wholly oblivious. He

12:58

noticed that his companion were growing uneasy

13:02

as soon he began to make plans to depart

13:04

to Watch, but once

13:06

again timing was not on Packer's

13:09

side. As he prepared to leave,

13:11

he ran into the general of the Las Pignots

13:13

Agency, a fellow by the name of General

13:15

Charles Adams, And

13:18

even if he wasn't completely oblivious,

13:20

he also couldn't resist sharing his

13:22

story again, so he sat

13:25

down for breakfast with the general's wife and

13:27

told her all about his time in the mountains.

13:30

While his wife was occupied. General

13:33

Adams took it upon himself to do some digging.

13:35

He was quickly informed about the suspicious

13:38

Packer and soon formed a plan

13:40

of his own. General Adams

13:42

decided that a party would be formed to go search

13:45

for Packer's men, and Packer,

13:47

it was decided, would be their paid

13:50

guide. What Alfred Packer,

13:52

General Adams and all the men in Sewatch

13:54

didn't know was that at that very moment,

13:57

more men from Packer's original party were

14:00

arriving at the Las Pinos agency. When

14:03

General Adams and Packer returned, these

14:05

prospectors did not give their former guide

14:07

a warm welcome. Instead,

14:10

it ended up being an interrogation. They

14:12

wanted to know what really happened up in those

14:15

mountains. It didn't

14:17

take long for Packer to crack. He

14:19

broke down, it suffered a short seizure,

14:22

and then confessed the

14:24

journey was harder than they thought. He

14:27

admitted that they had been foolhardy,

14:29

and over confident. The conditions

14:31

were unlivable, with snow above their

14:33

head for miles at some points. Soon

14:37

they began to run out of food, so

14:39

they began to forage, but that was

14:41

no good. They grew hungry

14:43

enough to start eating their leather shoes

14:46

and then one by one

14:48

they died. The first

14:50

to go was old man Swan. They

14:53

decided to eat him right then and there. The

14:56

survivors ate their dead as they

14:58

each slowly perished through their journey,

15:01

and when they were down to two men, Packer

15:03

and a man called Bell, they made

15:06

a pact to not kill and eat the

15:08

other. But Bell eventually

15:10

went back on his word and came at Parker

15:12

with the butt of his broken rifle. So

15:15

Packer did the only logical thing, he

15:17

shot Bell dead. While

15:20

General Adams may have believed Packer's tale,

15:22

the other men present didn't. They

15:25

knew and respected Bell and doubted

15:27

he would have gone back on his word. The

15:29

General determined that if Packer's story was

15:32

true, a Bell's body would be lying

15:34

with his broken rifle, and if that's

15:36

what was found, Packer would be set free

15:38

and sent home to Pennsylvania, all expenses

15:41

paid. So they

15:43

all set off. Packer

15:46

quickly became disoriented. Once he was back

15:48

on the trail, he was lost and

15:50

wouldn't be able to lead them to Bell. Perhaps

15:53

this was disingenuous, of course,

15:55

he didn't want to be caught, But don't

15:58

forget that he actually wasn't

16:00

a wilderness guide. He didn't have

16:02

a very good idea of where he was going, and

16:04

probably where he had gone to begin with.

16:07

But Parker was taken into custody

16:09

and installed in the cabin of the Swatch County

16:11

sheriff for the summer. Three

16:14

months later, an illustrator from Harper's

16:16

Weekly stumbled across the mutilated

16:18

remains of five men near the Gunnison

16:21

River. Their bodies were all

16:23

laid within a few feet of each other, covered

16:25

in blankets and clothes, and badly

16:27

decayed. All bodies showed

16:29

bullet holes and all had flesh

16:32

cut from bone. The one man's

16:34

skull was crushed and another's was

16:36

separated from its body. They

16:39

were also missing all valuable assets

16:41

cash included, of

16:43

course. Finding the remains of all bodies

16:45

together completely invalidated. Packers

16:47

claimed that they had all died slowly over

16:49

time. The artists drew

16:51

a sketch and brought it to the local authorities.

16:54

They quickly set off to the mountains to corroborate

16:57

the story. After the authorities

16:59

buried the remains of Packer's victims,

17:01

the team returned to the jail to confront him.

17:04

However, the cabin was empty.

17:07

Packer had escaped, Alfred

17:15

Packer took to the road again. It

17:18

was easy to be anonymous in those days.

17:20

For the better part of a decade, Packer stayed

17:22

out of the hands of the law. He

17:24

had gotten lucky. Though his digs

17:26

at the watch hadn't been so bad. He was still

17:29

being held without any evidence of wrongdoing.

17:32

He maintained his innocence, and not everyone

17:34

was as quick to blame him. It

17:36

would later be revealed that two men not

17:38

only helped Springham loose, but gave

17:40

him food for the journey. They

17:42

were upset the town's resources were going

17:45

to behold a man convicted of nothing, and

17:47

so they quietly released him, and

17:50

just days before the bodies of Packer's

17:52

party were discovered. His

17:54

luck couldn't last forever, though, and

17:56

he was recognized by a fellow prospector

17:58

in Cheyenne, Wyoming in eighteen eighty

18:01

three. The man wrote to General

18:03

Adams, who made quick work of getting

18:05

to town. There he found

18:07

an apprehended Packer taking him

18:09

down to Denver by train. A

18:12

Packer tried to work a deal. If

18:14

General Adams could protect him from the angry

18:17

mob that surely awaited him back in Colorado,

18:19

he would provide the real truth about

18:22

what had taken place in the mountains all those

18:24

years ago. The men made an agreement.

18:27

Flanked by a sheriff and a deputy, a

18:29

Packer made his confession. Packer

18:32

claimed that his party fractured one

18:34

day when one of the men, Swan, sent

18:36

Packer ahead to scout into the mountains

18:39

in order to find their way. A

18:41

Packer claimed he was gone a whole day, and

18:44

on his return saw something wildly

18:46

frightful. There sat

18:49

his companion Bell, hunched

18:51

and wild eyed, over a fire and

18:53

roasting a piece of meat. Four

18:56

other men lay dead around him, all in

18:58

various states of mutilais.

19:00

Some were shot, and some were slashed,

19:03

and some had hunks of flesh cut from

19:05

their bones. It's then

19:07

that Bell jumped up and came for Packer,

19:10

and reacting quickly, Packer shot him

19:12

in the stomach and then whacked him over the head with

19:14

a hatchet. Bell was dead,

19:17

and now Packer was alone. He

19:20

tried and tried again to get out of camp, but

19:22

the snow was impassable, so

19:24

for sixty days he stayed, making

19:27

fires and living off the flesh

19:29

of his companions. As

19:31

the spring pain he grew hopeful who

19:33

cooked the last of the meat, took

19:36

what he could and left the camp. This

19:39

time he had make it out. His

19:41

first confession. He told the men was crazed

19:43

and he couldn't be held responsible for what he

19:45

had said. He had been through quite

19:47

an ordeal, and they had to understand.

19:50

The news broke in papers from the mountains

19:53

to the sea. It was a sensational

19:56

story, and this man, after all, had

19:58

just admitted to eating his friend. There

20:01

was certainly a pantalizing drama

20:03

to that story, but the question

20:05

remained how much of it was

20:07

true. Many thought

20:10

Packer killed his companions in cold blood.

20:13

Swan's family said that he had left home

20:15

with six thousand dollars in cash and gold,

20:17

which would have provided Packer with plenty of

20:19

motivation for murder. Others

20:22

suggested he had knocked out members of

20:24

his party with morphine, which he had also

20:26

used to treat his epilepsy, before killing

20:28

them. In their minds, he

20:30

had this particular condition and

20:33

used it to aid in cold blooded murder.

20:36

Packer's trial began on April ninth

20:38

of eighteen eighty three. He was only

20:40

charged with the murder of Swan. This

20:43

was strategic for the prosecution. Team and

20:46

hopefully an easy sell to the jury,

20:49

and if he got off well, they could bring

20:51

more charges against him in the deaths of the

20:53

other four men. For the first

20:55

two days, men testified against

20:57

him. On the third day he took

21:00

the stand. He told his story

21:02

once again about finding Belle at a

21:04

campfire, surrounded by his dead companions.

21:07

He admitted to taking their money, he admitted

21:10

to eating them. He denied

21:12

killing anyone. But bell Packer

21:15

left the courthouse that day feeling confident

21:17

in his performance. He looked

21:20

forward to being a free man. But

21:23

even if he was telling the truth where

21:25

it mattered, he lied about other

21:27

things on the stand, his age,

21:29

his military service, his epilepsy.

21:32

He just couldn't stop himself

21:34

from lying. He was

21:36

convicted in the death of old man Swan

21:39

and sentenced to hang. But

21:41

once this verdict came down, his team petitioned

21:44

since the crimes happened on the Ute reservation,

21:47

it was out of the state court's jurisdiction, and

21:50

they were right legally on

21:53

the grounds of territory, Packer couldn't

21:55

be charged with murder. They

21:57

were also right about something else. Murders

22:00

took place. Colorado was not yet a

22:02

state that meant that they could

22:04

not legally apply the laws of the state

22:06

to the crime which had been made after

22:09

the crime occurred. There

22:11

had been a law allowing the state to prosecute

22:13

murders that had happened in the territory, but

22:16

that law had since been repealed and rewritten.

22:20

Packer could not legally be tried

22:22

for murder, but he could still

22:24

be tried from manslaughter the

22:26

laws allowed for that. Packer

22:28

won his rights to a second trial, which

22:30

took place in eighteen eighty six under

22:33

the new Colorado legislation. He

22:35

was tried for a voluntary manslaughter of

22:37

all five men instead of

22:40

the murder of one.

22:42

His second trial was almost identical

22:44

to the first. The same witnesses

22:46

appeared and the same evidence was presented.

22:49

A verdict was quickly reached. A

22:51

Packer was guilty of killing his companions

22:54

and sentenced to forty years in prison,

22:56

the longest custodial sentence in American

22:58

history at that point. By all accounts,

23:01

he was a model prisoner. It was

23:03

even said that he used his pension to help

23:05

the formerly incarcerated get back on

23:07

their feet. After

23:10

sixteen years behind bars, he petitioned

23:12

for the fifth time to be paroled. His

23:15

request was denied yet again, but

23:17

he caught the attention of a curious reporter

23:20

from the Denver Post named Polly Prye.

23:23

She began a media campaign for his release,

23:26

and the tide of public favor slowly

23:29

began to turn towards him. It

23:31

was revealed that he had largely been

23:33

convicted on flimsy circumstantial

23:35

evidence. In January

23:38

of nineteen o one, the Governor of Colorado

23:41

made it his final act before retiring,

23:43

to grant Parker parole. He

23:46

would spend the rest of his days in a quiet

23:48

flower garden, raising chickens and

23:50

rabbits. He fought until the

23:52

day he died in nineteen o seven for a full

23:55

pardon. According

23:57

to the telling, his last words

23:59

were, I'm not guilty of

24:01

the charge.

24:09

Alfred Packer always maintained

24:12

that he may be guilty of eating the

24:14

men after they died, he may be guilty

24:16

of taking their money, but the only

24:18

one of them he killed was Bell, which

24:20

was an act of self defense. There

24:23

have been multiple investigations into the

24:25

matter to determine whether Packer had

24:27

lied about the events in those mountains or not.

24:31

But in the words of James E. Stars,

24:33

George Washington University law professor

24:36

and Packer expert. While

24:38

there's no question that Packer was a monumental

24:40

liar, it's likely that he sometimes

24:43

told the truth. Investigations

24:45

in recent years continue to focus

24:47

on what really happened that long

24:49

cold winter. Physical evidence

24:52

points to murder, yes, but it

24:54

doesn't point researchers in the direction of

24:56

who did the killing. Today

25:00

case is still being debated, but

25:02

the general consensus remains we

25:05

can't know what really happened. Did

25:08

the pathological liar lie or

25:11

did he tell the truth? Who shot

25:13

first? And what were the specific circumstances

25:16

around that violence. Was

25:18

Packer a calculated murderer who

25:20

led these men to their doom? Or

25:23

was he a victim of circumstance? Or

25:26

was the truth somewhere in between. Today,

25:29

Packer's cannibalism can be just

25:32

as much of a punchline as it is a

25:34

horror. The University of

25:36

Colorado at Boulder, for example, has a

25:38

dining hall named after him. Slogan

25:40

is have your friends for lunch. We

25:44

remain fascinated by cannibalism, whether

25:46

in fact or fiction or

25:48

in some murky space in between. We

25:51

see it span centuries and cultures

25:53

of myth and legend, and propped

25:55

up high on the silver screen, we

25:58

can't look away. The

26:01

act represents many different things

26:03

for each of us. How far we'll

26:06

go to survive, what it means

26:08

to be civilized, the link

26:10

between the known and the other, and

26:14

fundamentally, what it means to

26:16

be human. How far

26:18

will any of us go to survive? It's

26:21

a question we can all ask ourselves, but

26:24

can't ever truly know until

26:26

we are in the most desperate of circumstances.

26:30

In the case of Packer, he is the only

26:32

one who truly knew what happened.

26:36

There's more to this story. Stick

26:38

around after this brief sponsor break to hear

26:41

all about it. The

26:53

frigid Yukon was once a place

26:55

for outlaws. It's

26:57

here that rum runner Louis Lincoln and

26:59

his Auto found themselves caught

27:01

in a blizzard one night. The unfortunate

27:04

auto accidentally stepped through some ice,

27:06

soaking his foot and chilling him to

27:08

the bone. By the time the

27:10

two brothers made it back to their cabin, they

27:13

were in pretty bad shape. The

27:15

frostbite had set into Otto's foot, and

27:17

it became clear that his big toe

27:19

in particular, was at risk for developing

27:21

gangreen, so Louis

27:24

did what he had to in order to save his brother's

27:26

foot. He amputated the toe

27:29

and popped it into a nearby jar of

27:31

booze. Why the

27:34

story doesn't say, but it

27:36

seems likely that there was a thought

27:38

that it could be preserved with the hope that it someday

27:40

might be reattached. Or perhaps

27:43

it was just a humorous and macabre

27:45

souvenir. He had done the

27:47

work of growing it himself, so why throw it

27:50

out. The toe, though,

27:52

would never again meet its maker. It

27:55

languished in its boozy tomb until

27:57

nineteen seventy three, when it said

27:59

the local boat captain named Dick Stevenson

28:02

found the jar of alcohol while cleaning out

28:04

a cabin. He was

28:06

delighted. Stevenson

28:09

picked up the jar and ferried it down to

28:11

his local watering hole. There

28:13

he brought it around the bar, daring patrons

28:15

to dunk the toe in their drinks, and

28:18

thus the Sour Toe Cocktail

28:21

Club was born. Sadly,

28:24

though, the original toe was not long

28:26

for this world. In nineteen

28:28

eighty a miner was going for the sourte

28:31

cocktail world record, and

28:33

on his thirteenth glass he swallowed

28:36

the toe by accident. Not

28:38

to be dissuaded by this temporary roadblock,

28:41

the club carried on and lives

28:43

on at the Sour Toe Saloon, still

28:45

in operation in Dawson City today.

28:48

It's said that plenty of amputated toes

28:50

have been donated for the cause. One

28:53

even arrived with a warning, don't

28:55

wear open toed shoes while mowing the lawn.

28:59

So if you may make it to Dawson City

29:01

and are feeling brave, saddle up

29:03

to the bar. The club is still taking

29:05

members, and lucky for you, the

29:07

bartender will make the cocktail with any alcohol

29:10

of your choice. You might

29:12

even get a chance to hear a taunting jingle.

29:15

You can drink it fast, you can drink

29:17

it slow, but your lips must

29:19

tough that gnarly tow. American

29:26

Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum.

29:28

This episode was written by Robin Minietter and

29:31

researched by Alex Robinson, with fact

29:33

checking by Jamie Vargas. It's

29:35

produced by Jesse Funk and Trevor Young. The

29:38

executive producers Aaron Menke, Alex

29:40

Williams, and Matt Frederick. To

29:42

learn more about the show, visit griminmild

29:44

dot com and four more podcasts.

29:47

My Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app,

29:49

Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to

29:52

your favorite shows.