We have never been to any of the
various Ripley’s on our travels, here in St Augustine is the original, so off we
went on todays touristy thing. The well-known Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museums are a
popular part of American vacation culture. Noted for their bizarre collections
of unusual and sometimes macabre artifacts, they can be found in locations such
as Key West, Panama City Beach, Branson, Myrtle Beach, Gatlinburg, San Francisco
and New York. The museum that started it all, however, is in the historic Warden Castle. Built in 1887 as the winter home of William
G. Warden, a business partner of John D. Rockefeller and Henry Flagler, the
castle is a noteworthy landmark from the post-Civil War era in St. Augustine.
The unique Moorish Revival architecture of the castle and its sheer size made it
one of the most striking private residences in the city. A focus for winter
activity, it was owned by the Warden family through the 1930’s.
In 1941 the castle was remodeled as a
hotel and hosted many prominent visitors. The famed novelist Marjorie Kinnan
Rawlings
(author of The Yearling, Cross Creek, and South Moon Under)
and her husband owned it and had an apartment on the top floor.
In April 1944, a fire
swept through the third and fourth floors of the Castle
Warden Inn, as it was called during the World War II era. Damage was
extensive and two women died. But many observers now believe that Ruth Hopkins
Pickering and Betty Neville Richeson were murdered and the fire set to cover up
the evil deed. Neither of the women were burned, but both
were believed at the time to have died of suffocation from the smoke fumes.
Ironically, both had locked themselves in their bathrooms and wrapped themselves
in wet towels, hiding in their baths. It is highly unlikely they knew each other. In
fact, Betty, a woman in her 20′s, had only checked into the hotel ninety minutes
before her death. Ruth, on the other hand, was staying in the 4th floor
penthouse apartment for a lengthy period at the behest of her good friend
Marjorie. Many believe Ruth was “hiding” from an
abusive spouse and Marjorie knew Ruth would be safe and comfortable there, just
a few blocks away from Ruth’s residence on Magnolia Avenue.
To this day, many people claim to see
the ghosts of Betty and Ruth roaming in the hallways. (The exhibit is quite
effective, one view of the room shows the woman, move to the left and she
disappears).
The hotel was also a favorite for Robert Leroy Ripley,
the newspaper cartoonist, writer and researcher made famous by his Believe It
or Not! cartoons that ran in newspapers around the world. Becoming convinced
that the castle would be an ideal home for a museum displaying his discoveries
and collection of artifacts, Ripley tried unsuccessfully to purchase the
structure. Following his death in 1949, however, his heirs finally managed to
secure the estate and in December of 1950 the nation's first Ripley's Believe
It or Not! Museum opened in St. Augustine. Today the museum is filled with
thousands of oddities, ranging from an Egyptian mummified cat to the world's
largest moving erector set. The unique architecture of the historic castle,
however, has been preserved and it remains an imposing sight. In addition to its
collection of unusual artifacts and stunning architecture, Warden Castle is also
a focal point for ghost hunters.
Robert
Leroy Ripley Timeline:
1890 Born in
Santa
Rosa, California
1901 Receives his formal
education
1906 Becomes a semi-pro
in baseball and sells first
cartoon to Life
1908 Quits baseball
briefly to support mother
1909 Moves from the San Francisco
Bulletin to the San
Francisco Chronicle
1912 Creates his last
drawing for the San Francisco Chronicle and moves to New
York that winter
1913 On the 2nd of
January, writes his first comic for the New York
Globe,
tries out for the NY
Giants, but an injury ends his baseball
hopes
1914 Takes his first trip
to Europe
1918 On the 19th of
December, publishes Champs and Chumps in the New York Globe
1919 Marries Beatrice
Roberts
1920 Takes his first solo
trip to Europe to cover the Olympics, held in Antwerp, Belgium
1922 On the 3rd of
December, takes first trip around the world; writes in installments in his
travel journal
1923 On the 7th of April,
returns to the U.S. and hires researcher and linguist Norbert
Pearlroth; the Globe ceases publication and the series
moves to the New
York Evening News
1925 Writes travel
journal, handball guide
1926 Becomes New York
handball champion and writes book on boxing score; divorces Beatrice Roberts
after being separated for some time.
1929 On the 9th of July,
William Randolph
Hearst's King Features
Syndicate features Believe It or Not! in seventeen papers
worldwide
1930 Begins an 18 year
run on radio, Hearst funds Ripley's world travels, where Ripley records live
radio shows from underwater, the sky, caves, snake pits and foreign
countries
1931 Releases movie
shorts for Vitaphone, second book of Believe it or Not!
1932 Takes trip to the
Far
East
1933 First
Odditorium opens in
Chicago
1934 Does the first radio
show broadcast simultaneously around the world and purchases 28-room home in
Mamaroneck, New
York
1935 Odditorium opens in
San
Diego
1936 Odditorium opens in
Dallas; Ripley voted most popular man in
America
1937 Odditorium opens in
Cleveland; Peanuts creator
Charles
Schulz's first published drawing appears in Believe it or Not!
1939 Odditoriums open in
San
Francisco and New York
City; Ripley receives honorary degree
from Dartmouth
College
1940 Purchases a 13-room
Manhattan apartment; receives two more honorary degrees; number
of foreign countries visited through funding by Hearst reaches
201
1945 Stops foreign travel
to do World War
II charity work
1946 Purchases a
Chinese
junk, the Mon Lei
1947 Purchases third
home, at High
Mount, Florida
1948 Radio program ends;
the 30th anniversary of Believe it or Not! is celebrated at a New York
costume party
1949 Ripley dies of a
heart attack on the 27th of May, shortly after thirteenth telecast of first
television show and is buried in Santa Rosa; auction of his estate is held;
estate is purchased by John Arthur.
An Uncommon Man: Ripley was commonly known as being extremely
eccentric; his friends called him “his own greatest Believe It or Not!”.
Although he was noted as being extremely shy, he dressed in flamboyant colour
combinations, often wearing bat-wing ties, pith helmets, coolie shirts and
Eskimo parkas. He kept a 28-foot boa constrictor as a pet and let squirrels and
chipmunks run around him while he drew. He thought both smoking and playing
cards were evil, but was a heavy social drinker and a notorious ladies man, at
times housing up to five or more live-in girlfriends at a time. He loved sailing
and purchased a Chinese Junk he called “Mon Lei”, yet he couldn’t swim a stroke.
It has also been rumoured that he changed his own birthday from Boxing Day to
Christmas Day in order to accentuate his eccentricity. Given his unbelievable
life, perhaps it is fitting that even Robert Ripley’s death left the world
wondering about the “Believe It of Not!” circumstances. At age 58, Ripley died
after taping the 13th episode of his television series, an episode that dealt
with death and death rituals. He passed out during the show, was taken to the
hospital and, soon after, was pronounced dead of a heart attack.
Ripley's ideas and legacy live on in Ripley Entertainment, a company bearing his name, which, since 1985 has been owned
by the Jim Patterson Group, Canada's 3rd largest
privately held company. Ripley Entertainment airs national television shows,
features publications of oddities, and has holdings in a variety of public
attractions, including Ripley's Aquarium, Ripley's Believe it or Not! Museums,
Ripley's Haunted Adventure, Ripley's Mini-Golf and Arcade, Ripley's Movie
Theater, Ripley's Sightseeing Trains, Great Wolf Lodge overlooking Niagara
Falls, Guinness World Records Attractions and
Louis Tussaud's wax Museums.
The Lord’s Prayer engraved on a pin head.
In the late 1800’s, a prisoner named A. Schiller was found dead in his cell in
Sing Sing Prison. The guards discovered seven straight pins on his body. Upon
examination, they saw that the dead man had engraved the Lord’s Prayer on the
head of each. Of the seven, however, only one was a perfect copy, the one we are
looking at through a magnifying glass. Schiller had been serving a life sentence
for forgery and had put his skills to good use. Although it had cost him twenty
five years of labour and his eyesight. The pin was first exhibited at the
Chicago World’s Fair in 1893 but was stolen from its display case and not seen
again for over forty years, until a minature collector Jules Charbneau
discovered it in a San Fransisco antique shop in the late
1930’s.
We bimbled around the three stories of
‘a mixed bag’ of exhibits. On each level there were
videos playing featuring everything from sword swallowers, a man who cam skip on
his bottom, men of beds of nails and so much more. There were death and life
masks, a pirate exhibit and lots more.
Bear by the world’s
biggest erector set. I much prefer to say Mecanno set.
In the corner is the Million Dollar Man.
Jim Shore a local created this sculpture from over a million dollars of
macerated money. The Really Hungry Moose. In Fort
Yukon, Alaska, during the winter of 1994, a bull moose crashed its head through
a cabin window in search of food. Trapped by its antlers, the moose couldn’t get
its head back out and eventually froze to death – still standing.
Robert Pershing Wadlow was born in Alton, Illinois on the 22nd of February 1918, was the
tallest person in history for whom there is irrefutable evidence. Wadlow reached
8 feet 11.1 in height and weighed 439 pounds at his death at age 22. His great
size and his continued growth in adulthood was due to hypertrophy of his
pituitary gland, which resulted in an abnormally high level of human growth
hormone. Robert was 8 pounds 6
ounces at birth and normal ‘length’. At the age of 4 he was 5 feet 4 inches; at
8 he was 6 feet 2 inches; at 18 he was 8 feet 4 inches; at 21 and 8 feet 9.5
inches he became the world’s tallest man. At school he used a desk made for his size, in 1936, after graduating
from Alton High School, he enrolled in Shurtleff College with the intention of
studying law. He showed no indication of an end to his growth even at the time
of his death. In later years Wadlow's size began to take its toll; he required leg braces to walk,
and had little feeling in his legs and feet. Despite these difficulties, Wadlow
never used a wheelchair. He continued participating in tours and public appearances, though only
in his normal street clothes. He wore size 37 AA shoes. On the 4th of July 1940, during a professional appearance, a faulty
brace irritated his ankle, causing a blister and subsequent
infection. Doctors treated him with a blood
transfusion and emergency surgery, but his condition
worsened and on the 15th of July 15 1940, he died in his sleep at age 22. An
estimated 40,000 people attended Wadlow's funeral on July 19. He was buried in a
10-foot-long, half-ton coffin that required twelve pallbearers to carry and
was interred in a vault of solid concrete. It was believed that Wadlow's family
members were concerned for the sanctity of his body after his death, and wanted
to ensure it would not be disturbed or stolen.
Robert Earl
Hughes was born weighing eleven and a quarter pounds on the 4th of June
1926. At the age of three months, suffering from whooping cough, he “burst a
gland in the back of his neck” or “attributed to a malfunctioning pituitary
gland” depending on source data. From that day on, to the end of his life, he
grew rapidly, gaining pounds and inches daily to be the heaviest human being
recorded in the history of the world. At the age of six, he weighed about two
hundred pounds; at ten, he weighed three hundred and eighty pounds. At the age
of twenty Robert wore overalls with a nine foot one inch waistband and had to
have his mother add two fifteen inch strips of material to regular size twenty
shirts in order to cover his one hundred and two inch chest. By the time of his
death, he weighed over half a ton. During his adult life, Hughes made guest
appearances at carnivals and fairs; plans to appear on the Ed Sullivan
television program were announced but never came about. On the 10th of July
1958, Hughes contracted measles, which soon developed into uremia, resulting in
his death in Baylis, Illinois; he was 32 years old. He is often said to have
been buried in a piano case. This error stems from a sentence that appeared in
successive editions of the Guinness Book of World Records, which read, "He was
buried in a coffin the size of a piano case." His headstone notes that he was
the world's heaviest man at a confirmed 1,041 pounds.
Edward
Hagner (1892-1962), who toured with circuses billed as “The Worlds
Thinnest Man” grew to 5 feet 7 inches tall, but only weighted 48 pounds.
Stricken at age of eight with Simmond’s Disease, a form of malnutrition caused
by a ruptured pituitary gland. Edward did not gain a pound for 62
years.
Accidents of nature came in the
form of a two-headed rabbit and lamb, a cow with a
leg ‘growing’ out of its back and Mike – the headless
chicken. On
the 10th of September 1945
a strapping (but tender) five and a half month old Wyandotte rooster was pecking
through the dust of Fruita, Colorado. The unsuspecting bird had never looked as
delicious as he did that, now famous, day. Clara Olsen was planning on featuring
the plump chicken in the evening meal. Husband Lloyd was sent out to dispatch
the bird. Nothing about this task turned out to be routine. Lloyd knew his
Mother in Law would be dining with them and would savor the neck. He positioned
his ax precisely, estimating just the right tolerances, to leave a generous neck
bone. "It was as important to Suck-Up to your Mother in Law in the 40's as it is
today." A skillful blow was executed and the chicken staggered around like most
freshly terminated poultry. Then
the determined bird shook off the traumatic event and never looked back. Mike
(it is unclear when the famous rooster took on the name) returned to his job of
being a chicken. He pecked for food and preened his feathers just like the rest
of his barnyard buddies.
When
Olsen found Mike the next morning,
sleeping with his "head" under his wing, he decided that if Mike had that much
will to live, he would figure out a way to feed and water him. With an
eyedropper Mike was given grain and water. It was becoming obvious that Mike was
special. A week into Mike's new life Olsen packed him up and took him 250 miles
to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The skeptical scientists were eager
to answer all the questions regarding Mike's amazing ability to survive with no
head. It was determined that ax blade had missed the jugular vein and a clot had
prevented Mike from bleeding to death. Although most of his head was in a jar,
most of his brain stem and one ear was left on his body. Since most of a
chicken's reflex actions are controlled by the brain stem Mike was able to
remain quite healthy.
In
the eighteen months that Mike lived as "The Headless Wonder Chicken"
he grew from a mere two and a half pounds to nearly eight pounds. In a Gayle
Meyer interview Olsen said Mike was a "robust chicken - a fine specimen of a
chicken except for not having a head." - "He was a big fat chicken who didn't
know he didn't have a head" - "He seemed as happy as any other chicken."
Mike's
excellent state of health made it difficult for animal-rights activists to
garner much of a following. Even now the town of Fruita celebrates Mike's
impressive will to live, not the nature of his handicap. Miracle Mike took on a
manager, and with the Olsens in tow, set out on a national tour. Curious
sideshow patrons in New York, Atlantic City, Los Angeles and San Diego lined up
to pay 25 cents to see Mike. The "Wonder Chicken" was valued at $10,000.00 and
insured for the same. His fame and fortune would earn him recognition in Life
and Time Magazines. It goes without saying there was a Guinness World Record in
all this. While returning from one of these road trips the Olsens stopped at a
motel in the Arizona desert. In the middle of the night Mike began to choke.
Unable to find the eyedropper used to clear Mike's open esophagus Miracle Mike
passed on. Now,
Mike's spirit is celebrated the third weekend in
May.
Luzon trophy
skull from the Philippines with mother of pearl eyes, mounted on a
stylised bat. Lily Slippers from the 19th century. At
the age of three the daughters of wealthy families had their feet purposely
broken and bound so tightly their toes touched their heels. The ideal foot was a
mere three inches long and was crushed into the shape resembling the Chinese
lotus flower. Shrunken Head from Ecuador. The Jivaro
Indians claim their enemies’ heads as symbols of bravery and display them,
reduced to the size of a fist, as war trophies.
Bear didn’t want to hang around too long in this tube. A vertiginous experience. I thought it was great, I
really did feel as if I was walking at a very steep angle, not perhaps a big an
angle as Bear
The best fun we had was in a DVD
machine. We lip-synched to ‘I feel good’ by the great James Brown. This is a copy of the picture that came out of the photo booth type
contraption we entered. By the time we got back to Beez Neez our one minute clip
of the event was ready to view in our email inbox. Sadly I couldn’t put it on
Facebook because of the copyright issue.
ALL IN ALL WE HAD
A REALLY GOOD
TIME
