The Real Al Swearengen: Part 1

Al Swearengen has become a widely-recognized figure in the time of the Black Hills gold rush. While his notoriety comes from his famous saloon, his early experiences as a pioneer child, 100-days man and apprentice barkeep all informed his later life.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from house
stuff Works dot com. Hello, welcome to the podcast. My
name is Holly Fry and I have been here on
History for just a couple of podcasts and now we
are fully transitioning over to having another new co host,

(00:27):
and that would be I am Tracy V. Wilson. I'm
joining the History t Yeah. Which is super exciting for me.
Is some of you probably know Tracy and I hosted
pop Stuff together, which was really super fun, and so
now I'm delighted that I get more Tracy time. That's
very exciting for me. Also, it's it's like being paid

(00:48):
to just do a thing that I would like to do,
just chat about interesting stuff. And today's topic is one
that when I say it, people who will recognize it,
but I think i'm us they've done any real research
on it, they may not realize the depth of wildness
of this particular figure in American history. Um and it's

(01:10):
Al Swearingen, who uh, fans of Deadwood will immediately recognize
the name because he's character on that HBO show which
ran for a little while. Um and I think there
were awards one for that portrayal. But if there were not.
There was definitely a lot of critical acclaim I know
he was I know that I McShane was nominated, But

(01:33):
it's one of those rare cases where what you see
on TV, while dramatized, doesn't even scratch the surface of
drama of the actual historical figures life. Like I almost
think you could never do justice to this man's history
because it's so full and full of bizarreness, Like no

(01:54):
one would believe it if they saw it on the show.
He's a pretty distinctive character. I I haven't watched enough
of the show to speak super intelligently on it, but
he's a pretty distinctive character, and not a good guy, No,
not a good guy, but his that that doesn't really
even scratch the surface of how deep that went in

(02:15):
his actual life. Yeah, it's an amazing story and so
we thought we would share it today because he you know,
started out as a child of pioneers and became a
proprietor of a very popular and lucrative entertainment venue. But
there are so many other facets of his life that

(02:37):
shocked me when I was doing research, Like, I was
surprised by sort of how embedded he was in so
many pieces of American history, and so here we go.
So he was actually born Ellis Albert swear Engine on
July Eve, and he has had a twin brother, Lemuel Ellis,
which is what he went by as a child, was
actually born. Second, he didn't adopt the name al. He

(03:01):
didn't start going by al until much later, which could
have been an effort to kind of dodge people that
were looking for him. Right into all of that, he
had a lot of cause that he really did. Um
his parents, Daniel and Cazia swear Engine. I have read
two or three different accounts on how many children they
actually had, some say eight, some say ten. Uh. Four

(03:22):
of them did not survive their childhood that we know
of that are documented. Three passed away his infants, and
he had I believe it was a brother that died
of diphtheria when he was fourteen. That family was actually
one of only thirteen families that settled oscar Looosa, Iowa.
And that is where um Ellis slash al where swear

(03:44):
Engine and his twin brother were born, which is in
Majasca County, and their father was a farmer. He served
as sheriff briefly. Um but what's interesting to note here
in his early years is that they did briefly move
to California during the gold rush there, but it didn't
pan out, no pun intended. As it often was the

(04:06):
case with gold rush people. People would head out after
hearing news of a gold strike hoping to become rich,
and it would not work out. They would return home
or go somewhere else with no money left. Uh And
a lot of times the settlement that had formed would
just be abandoned and become a ghost town. And this
was a pretty typical thing that happened with a fair

(04:26):
number of people in that era, very common and UM,
but I kind of highlight that because there are some
historians that believe that that experience ended up kind of
coloring swear Engine's approach to moneymaking. Later on. Um, he
seemed to recognize that it was not likely that he

(04:47):
was going to make a wealthy reving as as a
gold miner, but that there were other things time to
there were sure things. Uh So Yeah. Once they did
not strike at rich and Howlifornia, the family moved back
to Oscaloosa and his father opened a meat market. UM
and his twin brother actually was trained to take over

(05:07):
that business. Um, and this is an actual meat market.
We're not using that as a euphemism for anything. A
very typical They had livestock, they slaughtered animals and produced
sausage and cuts of meat for people, Like it was
a very successful, um, you know, butcher's shop grocery, but

(05:28):
it was considered bigger than a butcher's shop would be
because they did do all of the the animal um
care and slaughtering themselves. So that's why it's considered a
meat market and not just shop. And it was a
pretty standard pioneer world upbringing, not not a lot of
crazy excitement other than that one diversion to go to
California to try to make a million dollars. Yeah, I

(05:49):
think through the modern lens, pioneer upbringing seems full of
crazy adventure. But for the times, it was pretty much
what a lot of kids were going well. And I
am perpetually surprised by accounts of the Old West that
absolutely match up with our imaginary view of what the
Old West was about. And we'll get into more of
that in this story. Like there's a lot of the
saloons and the gun slinging in the prostitution and all

(06:11):
that and that you sort of think of with the
wild West, and then it turns out a lot of
that is very much it's based in the truth of
what really happened. So then an interesting thing happened, which
is not often talked about. Uh to the best of
my knowledge, in relation to swear Engine's history, now, a

(06:33):
lot of his history kind of goes from childhood to
the saloon part skips a slight side. Yeah, but he
was actually part of the Civil War, uh not for
a long time. UM. For background, he was part of
the Hundred Days Men Initiative, which was um a project

(06:54):
sort of designed to add some manpower to the Union's efforts.
They were in pretty good shape, but they knew they
needed just more boots on the ground, and they needed
the more experienced soldiers to stop doing some of the gruntwork. Yeah. Uh,
So they came up with this plan where men could
enlist for a hundred days and they would relieve the

(07:14):
more seasoned troops of those mundane duties like working in
guard houses and you know, paperworky things, so that those
established troops that had experience that knew what they were doing,
could then march on to actual battles where they were
needed and could really have an impact instead of sort
of wasting their time doing yeah, doing stuff that had

(07:37):
to get done but wasn't necessary, like occupying forts is
one of the things that was a big part of it.
So in May of the eighteen sixty four, swear engine
enlisted in the forty seventh Iowa Infantry, which was right
around the time of Grant's Wilderness Campaign. And then on
June fourth of that same year, uh they got orders
to head the Camp Kinsmen, which is near Davenport, Iowa,

(07:59):
and they were only they are really for a quick
changeover to get their next set of orders, and then
they were sent to Helena, Arkansas, UM. The Battle of
Helena had happened about a year earlier on July four,
which was going on at the same time as the
Battle of Gettysburg, and they had successfully taken um Helena,

(08:20):
and so this infantry that Swarringon was part of was
sent to Helena just to hold the fort there so
that those troops could that had been occupying it that
were needed elsewhere could go meet up with Sherman and
head east. They did not see a lot of action,
but they did see a lot of casualties because of illness. Yeah,
malaria was really a problem. Uh. They lost seven percent

(08:44):
of their numbers, largely attributed to malaria, but most accounts
suggest that there were other illnesses that happened as well,
which is not surprising at all. UH. And many of
the men were ill when they left and some die
after returning home, but they don't normally count those numbers
into the casualties during the hundred years or hundred years

(09:06):
hundred days of service, UM, So there were probably more
than seven percent that passed from just you know, gross
conditions and bugs. We don't really think of malaria as
a as an American disease anymore to mosquito control and
and that sort of thing. But it was really a
big problem in those years, especially. I mean, they were

(09:29):
never fired upon while they were there. They you know,
never had to do any battle, but they were still
losing soldiers due to parasites, because of parasites. But so
he served his hundred days. UM. By all accounts, they
were very successful. They did their job well even though
they were losing them to disease. And then on septembery

(09:51):
UH Swearingen was relieved. He was discharged and so he
returned to Oscaloosa, And for context, that's just before Sherman
started his March to the Sea, So that's where we
were in the era of the Civil War. So it
was a brief service. But again, I think it's interesting
that people tend to gloss right past the fact that
he served the Union in the Civil War. Nobody ever,

(10:13):
really it never comes up. Nope. A lot of what
I read before we started recording this skips completely from
childhood to saloon. Yeah. Literally is like he was a
pioneer child and then he then opened up the bar
and it's like, wait, surely something happened in there and
did so then comes his career. Uh, this is really

(10:35):
where his career takes off once he had had finished
his brief stint in the service. Uh, there were developments
going on in the United States at the time that
sort of led directly to how he came into what
he would become known for. And believe it or not,
that was actually the railroad. Um, it was the railroad.
And at the same time, it was still the war.

(10:56):
Because a lot of the people who normally would have
worked on the railroad, a lot of the people who
would have done that labor were instead off fighting. Yeah.
So a lot of the railroad work was done by
kind of a rough and tumble group of workers. A
lot of them were immigrants who weren't necessarily educated, didn't
necessarily know the language at all. Um. So a group

(11:20):
of people who were thought of as course and dirty
and uneducated to some extent that may have been very
true and in need of entertainment. Yeah. Uh. And so
what would happen as railroad tracks were being laid through
the Des Moines Valley. Uh, they would you know, be
working up to a certain point, which is called an

(11:41):
end of stop point before they finished that section, and
then would further extend it, and those end of stop
sort of pop up townships. Um. We're really where swear
Engine first started working. And he initially began there as
an apprentice bar keep late in eighteen sixty four, so
just after he discharged. Um, and for five years he

(12:03):
rode the rail, following it to the end of the line,
and the end of the line and the end of
the line, work in the work in the bar, trading
in on the lucrative commerce it was available there because again,
these are people that need entertainment. There's not really an
established township for them to like go to that entertainment,
and so they were just perfectly situated to just need

(12:26):
you know, beverages and gambling and um, well theoretically probably
some other underbelly kind of activity. Well. And part of
the reason that this could be so lucrative is that
since a lot of the workers were immigrants and didn't
necessarily know the language very well, didn't really know the
value of the money that they were using, it was

(12:49):
pretty easy for people who weren't very scrupulous to set
up their business in such a way that it was
sort of more like extortion. Yeah, they really took advantage
of people. Yes, and again it's in a situation where
there aren't many other amenities. It's not like they have
another choice to take their money elsewhere. So it's like
you can drink here or not drink at all. Right,

(13:09):
all right, you have sort of the company store in
this pop up business that maybe is charging an arm
and a leg for things that are not that expensive. Yeah.
So for those uh five years in the latter part
of the eighteen sixties, he really learned his trade as
a mar keep um. But then in eighteen seventy two,

(13:30):
major developments were happening. One, the Iowa railroads were really
booming um and the area near swear Engine's hometown of
Oscaloosa had become one of the primary end stops. Um.
There were a lot of railroads kind of leading towards
that same area, so there were a lot of people
coming in from different directions. And then to a rich

(13:53):
coal source was discovered in south central Iowa. Uh And
since they were building tracks for trains that needed coal,
the expansion of the railroad was really driving a big
need for coal that had not existed before. Yeah, they
had known there was coal there previously, but it wasn't
really that valuable. But now it was becoming a huge commodity.

(14:16):
And so now they not only had like the regular
workers that worked on the the tracks, they also had
miners coming in. And then there was kind of a
third group, which was cowboys that were using a nearby
town called Eddieville as a shipping terminal. So they were
like herding animals there and then putting them on trains

(14:38):
or sometimes handing them off to other people. And so
they had these three groups of primarily men that all
needed entertainment and beverages, and they were perfectly poised. Uh
So Swarington decided that he was going to seize that
moment because he recognized that this was this had the
potential to be something really big. Yeah, that us was

(15:00):
really maybe where he could cash in. And so, according
to local legend, the swyring Ine Twins opened the saloon
opened a saloon up in spring of eighteen seventy one. Um,
there is some mythology that hints that Jesse James actually
drank there after one of his big heists, but that
has never been I don't think fully verified. Uh, there

(15:23):
are a lot of sort of circumstantial yes that would
work out kind of things, but I don't know that
anyone has gotten ever hard evidence of yes, he was
here at this time. But I think it's interesting that
allegedly his twin was involved, since he had been being
groomed to take over the father's meat market. But he
Lemuel kind of falls out of the record after that.

(15:44):
He's we don't really hear much about him, and that
he ends up I think going back to to run
the shop and handle the family business, right and and
al definitely winds up with all of the notoriety. Yes,
notoriety is one word um. But the problem is that

(16:06):
in December of that same year, there was some really
weird um legal stuff going on around prohibition. So we
think of prohibition happening in the nine but there was
actually that is not the first time that prohibition was
happening in the United States. There were other individual states
were passing law. Yes, so Iowa had had a prohibition law.

(16:28):
It had been um determined that that was unconstitutional in
a follow up hearing, and then the Iowa Supreme Court
then determined that the judgment that that law had been
unconstitutional was thrown out. So now prohibition was back on,
and swarandein saloon was illegal in you know the sound

(16:49):
of a gabble, right, And even before the saloon itself
became illegal, one of his challenges had been getting enough
liquor to serve, Like he had to go to other
states where where it was legal to distill, yeah, the
liquor that he wanted, and and so he was pretty
deeply in debt when this happened. Yes, accounts very a
little bit. You'll sometimes see ten thousand dollars listed as

(17:12):
the amount and sometimes twelve. Um. That's a lot of
money back then, right, I mean, that's substantial. It sounds
not that huge for like a business owner starting out today,
but at the time, of course, it was a significantly
large amount. Uh So, he was in debt, He had
no income because his business was shut down. He owed

(17:32):
all this money, and he apparently did not really intend
to pay it back, so he took off. I started
imagine this is kind of a he hears about the ruling,
throws some stuff in a bag, and leaves under cover
of night. I mean, there's not really documentation of his
flight away from town, but I kind of imagine it
is that, Oh I'm out of here. Yeah see yuh so, yeah,

(17:56):
he took off and he actually headed to Denver and
thought he would get an you start and also dodge
out on his debt. Um. That didn't work entirely, no,
so he um he got to Denver. He evaded his
debtors for several months, but nothing lasts forever. So on

(18:16):
May second of eight seventy two, he was in an
Arapahoe County courtroom and defending against fraud charges because they
alleged that he never had any intentions to pay any
of the money that he owed for all of that
liquor that he had had brought into his saloon, but
he had borrowed money that he just never had any
intent to pay back, Which is not cool that that

(18:41):
will echo many times throughout his life. Yeah, we could,
we could, and we will not do this, but we
could pretty much follow all of the sentences from here
until the end within that was not cool. Yeah, well,
and we could also probably do an entire podcast, not
just the people that he promised to pay that he
never even meant to ever give a sense um. But

(19:02):
so he had hoped to get out of this um
this case on a technicality. His lawyer cited the main
law m A. I n. E. Law of at Um.
Section fifteen dash ninety one of Iowa's prohibition law states
that and I quote, all payments or compensation for intoxicating
liquors hereafter sold in violation of this Act will be

(19:24):
null and void, nor shall any action be maintained for
the recovery or possession of any intoxicating liquor of the
value thereof. So he was hoping that his lawyer could say, well,
it was illegal for them to have to sell the
liquor anyway, so he should never have to pay them back.
Um that is a pretty interesting provision to have and
a law. It basically says, if you bought a whole

(19:47):
bunch of liquor, that didn't really happen. And since almost
all of the debts were just for alcohol for stocking
the saloon, they really thought that they had it that
they were going to get out of the case on this.
But the plaintiffs, lawyer yours, countered that the main law
wasn't actually in effect when these goods changed hands. So
they're saying this does not retroactively, right. You can't the

(20:08):
money not be actually spent on liquor, right, And that
law had actually been, you know, on the books in
an earlier stage of prohibition, but when that was deemed
unconstitutional was the period when they purchased the liquor, so
they couldn't like it was. The argument was that you
could not maintain that law throughout the time when it

(20:29):
was then legal to sell alcohol like it wasn't the
switch was flipping on and off. You couldn't just apply
the law to stuff that happened in UM one. And
then there was a kind of a window where that
law would not have applied. Right. Swear Engine's defense was
a little bit shaken by this. I don't know why

(20:50):
they wouldn't have seen that coming, but they kept requesting
continuances and like saying, oh, could we we were still
working on the case because that really threw us for loop.
And eventually it just dragged on for so long that
both sides we're willing to just say, let's just throw
this all in front of a judge and let them
decide um. We don't want to do a jury trial.

(21:12):
We don't want to keep dragging this out. Let's just
settle this. It's almost like settling out of court, but
you're in court. It's just kind of like going to
the judges chambers and letting them decide um. But the judge,
of course sounds swear Enging guilty. Yes, And an appeal
was filed by swear Engine's lawyer, I think, but swar
Engin didn't show up for that so much as he

(21:34):
had no intention of paying any of the money back.
I think he had no intention of showing up for
that court date because that would have involved paying the
money back to so he took off. That's another one.
Every chapter of his life really ends with. So he
took off. He just left. He next headed towards Helena,
which is Helena, Montana and not the Helen and we
mentioned earlier. During his Civil War time, Um, there had

(21:58):
been a goldfind in Helen, uh, and so a mining
camp had started up there, and Helena was kind of remote.
You had to cross mountains to get there. And so
he thought like, ha ha, this is like an eight
day journey minimum. I can go hide out there and
they won't find me for at least a while. Surely
if I go there, I can become anonymous and start again. Um.

(22:20):
You might have he might have done well to maybe
change his name at the point. That's the first name
also like the last name that never seems to have
been And so you know, because the mining camp was new,
he thought he could blend in. But I'm sure also
that the mining camp of the miners that needed entertainment
there were also a little bit of a draw for him. Um.

(22:43):
And he wasn't in Helena very long. But while he
was there he did manage to acquire a wife. Yes,
her name was Annett Walton and she went by Nettie.
And at the time he was twenty nine and she
was twenty two, and she had always lived at home,
so he kind of plucked her from her family and
married her. That will also be a theme later. Yeah,

(23:04):
we don't hear a whole lot about Eddie until kind
of later in the game. But um, So in spring
of uh swearing, Jin and his wife were then on
a steamer headed to Bismarck in Dakota Territory, UH, with
the intention that they would then make a connecting stagecoach
to the Black Hills because it was rumored that gold

(23:24):
was plentiful, um and that meant there would be lots
and lots of hopeful minor. He wasn't after the gold,
he would need alcohol, um. And he was also in
search of land. He had really learned from his father's
Oscaloosa success because his dad had actually purchased land before
they went to California for the the attempt at the

(23:45):
gold rush there, and so when that didn't work out
and they went back to Oscaloosa, they had land he
could set up his shop without having made those purchases.
I think it would have been a lot harder for
the family returning from the just picked up and and
start their life to start something and then be pretty
successful with it. And so there is this combination. It

(24:05):
comes up periodically that he he learned a lot from
that in terms of wanting to purchase property, and that
he had also learned from his time as an apprentice
bar keep that don't mind the mind mind the minor,
like that's a sure thing. You don't know if they'll
find goal, but you know they'll want to drink at
the end of the day. Uh. So he had really
sort of developed this kind of like what he thought

(24:28):
was best practices for business in terms of, you know,
being able to make money and uh you know, keep
a steady inflow of income. And so he kind of
bases all of his decisions from here on out on that. So,
as we said, when we got to Dakota, he was
looking for land, um and initially he set up a
home and Custer and he was actually credited in the

(24:51):
Bismarck Daily Tribune as one of the people who established
Custer City, which is another thing we don't really hear
about him. It seems almost like upstanding citizen e. But
that kind of gets obscured because one, it was a
very brief time in his life and too um, there
are other things that far overshadow go forward, and there

(25:11):
I read one historian account where he suggested that a
lot of people have kind of, um guess that what
might have been the case here where he has this
weird sort of civic community mindedness, is that he was
freshly married and he may have thought like he was
going to become a responsible, you know, businessman and a
community leader to some degree. And that's why he was

(25:34):
focusing a little bit more on land at that point.
But we don't really know. That's just um, you know, guesses. UM.
And in any case, it didn't really last um partially
because Custer kind, Custer City kind of emptied out. Um.
There was a big gold find in Deadwood Gulch, and

(25:55):
people started moving out of Custer City and to Deadwood.
And then once again he got in trouble for selling liquor. Yeah,
in um and I'm using the air quotes because this
is actually quoted. It's an Indian country. Um. So, according
to the Sioux Treaty of eighteen sixty eight, the Black Hills,

(26:16):
which are considered sacred to the Sioux, we're still owned
by the suit. But um u s citizens could explore
that area and could pay in there, but they could
not sell alcohol there. They couldn't have businesses there and
he was selling alcohol um in in Indian country. So, uh,

(26:37):
he became a fugitive again. I mean, it never really ends.
He's sort of always a fugitive. This is just stage two.
Um it is another layer of things that he is
on the run from. Yeah, it's interesting because later on
he kind of he still is avoiding a lot of things,
but he doesn't run from it. He just dodges it

(26:58):
in kind of crafty way. And this is the point
at which he really has a shift in his life
story because he really does kind of set down roots.
And that is actually where we are going to break
for this particular story, because there is so much that

(27:19):
happens in the next part of his life that it's
a whole episode on its own. There is a two parter. Well,
there's so much that's happened up to this point that
gets glossed over, and most accounts of his life they
are it's just they really jump right to deadwood. Is
why we wanted to do this first part. Like all
of the other sort of wild adventures he had, I mean,
they weren't as wild as what's to come, but they

(27:42):
are interesting pieces of the puzzle that I think people
don't always take into account. I mean, like I said,
it's his service and his you know, his marriage and
possible weird shift to try to be you know, a
above board guy for a little while, and um, you
know sort of how those things really shaped his business mindset,

(28:05):
you know, in his experiences with his parents and his
father's success. It's kind of interesting. I think it's good
to lay that groundwork so that when we get to
this this next part where things really go a little crazy,
it's not craziness that's happening in a vacuum. We have
a better sense of what brought him to this point. Yeah. So, uh,

(28:26):
that is phase one of Al Swarrenton's life. Buckle up,
you might want to put on safety gear for the
next episode because it really does get a little bit wild.
It really in all things where you consider the wild
West and the settling of America, whatever weird crazy stories
you've heard, it's kind of like that and maybe bigger.

(28:48):
So that's phase one of Al, and we will we
have so much more to tell you. So I hope
you are excited for this next part because that's where
it really is juicy. I believe you also have some
fantastic listen man, I do show. Um. We did a
podcast on Walter Potter and taxidermy recently and we got

(29:10):
a lot of really fun responses to it. I think
it's one of those things that just kind of captures
people's imagination and both there. Um, there's a fascination with death.
There's a horrific fascination level to it. Yeah, it's a
little bit of a you can't look away thing. Um.
But we had, like I said, some very very fun emails,

(29:31):
and I have a few very brief ones. The first
one is from our listener Helene, and she says, Hi,
I just finished listening to your podcast on Walter Potter
and you mentioned that you were not aware of many
movies on taxidermy. I had one that came to mind instantly.
Even though taxidermy is not quite the main theme, Psycho,
I had completely forgotten about this. Uh. It does not
paint taxidermy in the most flattering way, obviously, no matter

(29:54):
how creepy one thinks, stuffed pets are stuffed. Mom takes
the cake. I greatly enjoy your podcast. I'm looking forward
to more. I agree, so I right, mounting human being
as a work of Taxidermy arn't is creepy? I con
curtain uh. And then another one is from our listener, Margie,

(30:14):
and this is in reference to something Sarah mentioned about
a two headed snake that she has seen at the
She used to see at the Georgia State Capitol that
fascinated her, and she says, Dear Sarah, I thought I
would tell you something more about your favorite two headed
snake at the Georgia State Capitol. My brother and his
friend caught that snake when they were eight years old
in a creek in our neighborhood in West End. They
caught it in a jar and brought it home, thinking

(30:36):
they had quite the prize. Our mother had a fit,
but our father thought it was cool. Because it was
a water moccassin, they were not allowed to keep it.
That is the sentence I read about eight times in
that email. Because it was a water mocks in, they
were not allowed to keep it if it weren't potentially dangerous. Well,
I'm kind of amazed that some eight year olds managed
to catch a water mocks in in a jar because

(30:58):
they tend to be very aggressive. Yeah, they do, but
maybe the maybe right, Margie, if you have additional information
about the behavior of the snake were very curious. Yes,
two headed animals often do not live in the wild.
Maybe that helped and then not be bitten by watermarks.
I love this next part as well. I remember that

(31:19):
one head was dominant and would bite the other. This
might have led to its death, though I do not know.
I really want more information, Margie. We need follow up.
We need like a whole background on that. Maybe it's
aggression was solely taken out on the other head and
not on the eight year old and just busy fighting
itself in like a sort of beautiful Freudian snake life.

(31:40):
I'm gonna have to have some kind of existential snake
dreams tonight. And then our last email is from our
listener Gavin uh And he says, Hi, guys, I was
just listening to the podcast about Walter Potter and his
Texader me and it got me thinking about bass pro shops.
We have those here as well. He's in Canada, he says.
Bass pro shops are these very large outdoor type shops which,

(32:01):
on the inside of many locations feature a large number
of taxidermy specimens indigenous to the area the store is located.
In the closest store to where I live is about
three hours away and is filled with deer, bighorn sheep,
and more. Dear when you first walk in. On the
ceiling is a sort of fresco that features a big
Alberta sky with at least twenty specimens sort of jumping
from the ceiling. Another popular feature is a polar bear

(32:24):
standing on its hind legs. That is a very popular
place for children to take pictures standing in its arms. Um,
we have those here. Yeah, I've only been in too.
I think we have a lot of them in Georgia,
especially once you leave the Metro Atlanta area and you're
just outside the city where it's close enough for big
stores to still be, but far enough out that people

(32:45):
want more sportsman type thing. Yeah. Things have become pretty
rural outside of And I know one of ours has
a bear, not a polar bear. Um, like a it's
a brown bear. But I don't know what species it is.
I'm embarrassed to a mint. I didn't pay close attention. Uh,
And I know we have some that have a lot

(33:05):
of birds. There's one that has like geese and stuff. Yeah,
it's weird. I never thought about it. Because I haven't
heard the one in a long time. But the second
I read his email, I was like, oh, man, yeah,
we have both, and they do have the birds mounted
in the windows. I listened to that episode. I listened
to a number of episodes leading up to recording this
episode today because I know I have some giant shoes

(33:27):
to fill and I want to make sure I feel
them well. Um, and I immediately in that episode was
reminded of a family heirloom in my family which is
not taxid or made. It is, in fact a dead
puppy with two bodies and one head preserved in a
jar from Aldeheid. Yeah it's a little it's a little terrifying,
but yeah, upon hearing about all these animals and they're

(33:49):
strange bodies and and all of that, that is immediately
what you immediately came to mind. If Walter Potter were
alive today, he would put a little suit coat on
the puppies two suitcoat, it's I guess, and come up
with some adorable tableau. Um. So, yeah, I loved hearing
about everybody's taxidermy thoughts. There were many, which is really cool.

(34:12):
It's one of those things where I find it really
interesting and fascinating, but at the same time, like, are
people just gonna be horrified by this topic? But no,
you guys appreciate the weird and wonderful history of it.
If you would like to write to us about taxidermia
or anything else we talk about, you can do so
at History Podcast at Discovery dot com. And you can
also touch base with us on Twitter at mist in History,

(34:32):
and we're also on Facebook. If you would like to
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like to research almost anything else your mind can conjure,

(34:53):
you can do that as our at our website as well,
and that website is how stub works dot com for
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how stuff works dot com. M m m m mmmm.