Big Nose George Parrot

Congrats to Dan Stephens of Thompson’s Station, TN who correctly named Big Nose George Parrot and then was drawn from the correct answers to win a copy of the Phantom of the Black Hills cd “Born To Gun”. Here’s a bit on the death of Big Nose George and the interesting use of his corpse:

“In 1880 Big Nose George Parrott and his second, Charlie Burris or “Dutch Charley”, were arrested in Miles City by two local deputies, Lem Wilson and Fred Schmalsle, after Big Nose and Charlie got drunk and boasted of killing the two Wyoming lawmen, thus identifying themselves as men with a price on their head. Parott was returned to Wyoming to face charges of murder. Parrott was sentenced to hang on April 2, 1881, following a trial, but tried to escape while being held at a Rawlins, Wyoming jail. Parrott was able to wedge and file the rivets of the heavy shackles on his ankles, using a pocket knife and a piece of sandstone. On March 22, having removed his shackles, he hid in the washroom until jailor Robert Rankin entered the area. Using the shackles, Parrott struck Rankin over the head, fracturing his skull. Rankin managed to fight back, calling out to his wife, Rosa, for help at the same time. Grabbing a pistol, she managed to persuade Parrott to return to his cell. News of the escape attempt spread through Rawlins and groups of people started making their way to the jail. While Rankin lay recovering, masked men with pistols burst into the jail. Holding Rankin at gunpoint, they took his keys, then dragged George from his cell.The 200-strong lynch mob strung him up from a telegraph pole. Charlie Burris suffered a similar lynching not long after his capture; having been transported by train to Rawlins, a group of locals found him hiding in a baggage compartment and proceeded to hang him on the crossbeam of a nearby telegraph pole.

Doctors Thomas Maghee and John Eugene Osborne took possession of Parrott’s body after his death, to study the outlaw’s brain for clues to his criminality. The top of Parrott’s skull was crudely sawn off, and the cap was presented to 15-year-old Lillian Heath, then a medical assistant to Maghee. Heath became the first female doctor in Wyoming and is said to have used the cap as an ash tray, a pen holder and a doorstop. A death mask was also created of Parrott’s face, and skin from his thighs and chest was removed. The skin, including the dead man’s nipples, was sent to a tannery in Denver, where it was made into a pair of shoes and a medical bag. They were kept by Osborne, who wore the shoes to his inaugural ball after being elected as the first Democratic Governor of the State of Wyoming. Parrott’s dismembered body was stored in a whiskey barrel filled with a salt solution for about a year, while the experiments continued, until he was buried in the yard behind Maghee’s office.”