#weird oklahoma

[whitepolaris]

Elmer McCurdy, the Outlaw Who Wouldn't Give Up

Gather 'round my children, and I'll tell a tale of woe About a famous cowboy outlaw who lived a hundred years ago . . . A hundred hears have come and gone since he spoke his final words. I'm not afraid to die and leave behind this rotten world. So go and pull the lever hangman, now my race on Earth is run. And he thought his life was ended but it had only just begun. -Brian Dewan, The Cowboy Outlaw

Imagine this: It's 1973 and Steve Austin, a fictional astronaut, is a man barely alive. Now it's 1911: Elmer J. McCurdy, an outlaw-very, very dead! Who would have thought these two show biz personalities would ever meet up?

In 1976, while Lee Majors played the role of astronaut Steve Austin on television's Six Million Dollar Man, the show's film crew found the mummified body of outlaw Elmer McCurdy as they were setting up for a shoot.

The crew was filming in Long Beach, California, at a funhouse called Laugh in the Dark. The place contained the regular spook-show decor, including wax figures, ghosts, and fake skeletons. While setting up at the location, the producer noticed a neon orange wax figure hanging from a makeshift gallows and asked one of the crew to take it down. He didn't like the way it looked in the scene.

The stagehand grabbed at the wax dummy's left arm, only to have it come off, revealing a human bone sticking out from its shoulder. Medical examiners and forensic investigators determined that the wax figure was actually a mummified body-and that it had been show by a .32 caliber bullet manufactured between 1830 and 1920. Upon further examination, investigators found in the mummy's mouth a 1924 penny and a ticket from the Museum of Crime in Los Angeles. The ticket helped police identify the body as that of outlaw Emler McCurdy, and the many roads he had taken in life-and afterward-that had led him to that Long Beach funhouse.

McCurdy had joined a few outlaw gangs and killed a few people, then he planned on robbing a Missouri Pacific train that supposedly was carrying a safe containing more than $1,000. On October 6, 1911, he robbed the train in Oklahoma, but when he opened the safe, he discovered it was the wrong train. Only $46 was inside. But he did manage to find a shipment of whiskey instead.

Heading to the Oklahoma farmlands a few days later, drunk and tired, McCurdy stopped at a farmhouse and fell asleep in the hayloft. A three-man posse that was tracking the outlaw trapped McCurdy and began firing. After an hour, a farmhand was asked to go inside the barn and tell McCurdy to surrender. The outlaw refused, telling the farmhand, "They can go to the devil." The barn was shot up, and McCurdy was discovered dead soon afterward.

His body was taken to a funeral home In Pawhuska, Oklahoma, but he was never identified, and no one claimed the corpse. The undertaker embalmed him with arsenic, (a does seven hundred times greater than we used in Egyptian mummies) and came up with a very entrepreneurial idea: Since the deceased looked very well preserved, and very stiff all dressed up in his last gun fightin' suit, he named the corpse "The Bandit That Wouldn't Give Up," and for a nickel, he would let the citizens of Pawhuska view it. The nickels were dropped into the mummy's mouth, later to be retrieved by the undertaker.

The mummy was on view for more than five years, and the undertaker refused many offers from carnivals and sideshows for his bandit corpse to use in their traveling freak shows. The nickel-swallowing mummy became a regular attraction for the funeral home in Pawhuska.

One day two men showed up at the funeral home claiming to be cousins of the mummy, and the undertaker had no choice but to give up the stiff to his next of kin for a proper burial. The two men turned out to be sideshow promoters who traveled around Texas, using McCurdy as, you guessed it, The Bandit That Wouldn't Give Up.

After Texas, the McCurdy mummy traveled around the country, often showing up at amusement parks, lying around in an open coffin in an L.A. wax museum, and-believe it or not-being used as a prop in low-budget films. He was known sometimes as "The Thousand Year Old Man." After a while, his body was coated with wax to help preserve it during his many road trips. His greatest tour was in the 1930s with Louis S. Sonney, a sheriff who acquired McCurdy for his traveling Wild West show.

Elmer was shuffled as collateral from one sideshow to another and eventually faded into obscurity. No one knows exactly how Elmer ended up at the defunct Laugh in the Dark funhouse in Long Beach, but when he was identified as McCurdy, medical examiners used a little-known method called "medical superimposition." Known photos of McCurdy were overlaid with x-rays of the mummy's face. From this they made a positive ID.

McCurdy was given a proper funeral in Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma, in 1977 and was buried in the same cemetery as such notorious figures as Wild Bill Doolin (of the Doolin-Dalton Gang) and Tom Capers, in Oklahoma's only Boot Hill (a.k.a gunslinger cemetery). The town residents gave old Elmer the full treatment: a parade ride to the cemetery in Wild West gear.

With his California show-biz days now behind him, McCurdy was certain to never again be a "ramblin' man:" The Oklahoma state coroner ordered two cubic yards of cement to be poured into McCurdy's grave.

[elinordash]

FILM & TV YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW: Day 2 – Genre ⟶ Musical Films

On the streets you hear the voices / Lost children, crocodiles / You're not into / Making choices, wicked witches / Poppy fields, or men behind the curtain / Tiger lilies, ruby slippers / Clock is ticking, that's for certain!

[playlist]

[staygoldpbj]

a variety of marlie (aka micah foster x charlie torres-moore) (aka trevor's greaser and josh's greaser) screenshots from the gma performance <3 i'm so obsessed with them

(credit it @elisadoreyou for their name and characters and being insane abt them with meeee <3)

[quixoticanarchy]

whenever the pigeon museum post gets notes people are like "omg op where's the pigeon museum?!? i need to go to the pigeon museum!!" and well i'm pleased to tell you the pigeon museum is in oklahoma & this post has been a trap to get you to come to the wretched state of oklahoma

[helloparkerrose]

[motorcycleboy9]

I hope that in the other universe we're not a blond&black hair duo in the US during 80's in which one desperately wants to protect the other hates the social distributions and wishes to escape the world of cruelty and live as plain normal people

[dallasgallant]

Boys doing the “I don’t think it effects me/ say X” trend

Soda v “Five bowls of boiling oil”

He starts crying attempt 2

[trenchphotos1]

Requisit northern lights photo, because I'm absolutely certain you don't have enough magenta in your feeds. I'm going to be honest: I took this during the second wave of activity very early this morning, and ya'll, I didn't see a bloody thing in the sky. Obviously, it was there because here's camera proof.* It was quite odd, seeing something on the screen that wasn't obvious in real life. Oftentimes I see a scene and the photo just isn't able to translate whatever was going on in my head when I shot it. In this case, it was the photos doing all the translation. I have a lot more, but they all look pretty much the same. What was much more interesting was the little kabal of excited, young photographers watching the sky with me. None of us knew each other at 23:00 on The Perch (excluding two siblings), but by almost three in the morning, we were all comparing shots not only of the current sky, but storm shots over time as well. I was the proxy mom in the group. They were delightfully awed by what was happening and it was fun to watch and be a part of. Anyway. That's my aurora tale and I've officially marked the phenomenon on my photo bingo card. I need some super-strange moon this year so I can have an astrological-pic trifecta.

*Light pollution? Who knows.

[coachbeards]

also btw michelle lasso is a victim!!

[whitepolaris]

Skiatook's Cursed Avenue

North of Skiatook, between two sharp bends in the road, lies North Garrison Avenue, a stretch of narrow asphalt just a quarter mile long. It lies in a relaxed, rural area that, on a cool summer day, would probably make a great backdrop for a peaceful drive. But at night it turns more toward the uninviting. Save for the ramble of an occasional pickup truck making its way home, this moderately secluded spot carries a chilling quiet. The slowly undulating trees and the ethereal, green glow of nearby mercury-vapor lamps only add to the sinister feeling in the atmosphere.

The dread this place tends to inspire, however, may be justified. It's said that travelers passing this way occasionally come across lost soul wandering the roadside. The figure, a teenage boy, is seen walking the grassy shoulders, seemingly stunned and disoriented. He appears only briefly, leaving any would-be Good Samaritans at a loss when stopping to offer assistance. As yet, no one's identified the boy, but he's presumed to be a young driver who perished in the 1970s while crossing the bridge over one of the nearby creeks.

Adding to the foreboding is an adjoining graveyard that dates well into the 1800s, a dark necropolis said to include a cursed burial plot. Many decades ago, a woman was reportedly executed vigilante-style and stuck in the ground in the hope she would no longer subject the locals to her witchcraft. Unfortunately, the attempt to suppress the woman's activities was less than successful. Though everyone hoped she would be gone and forgotten, she has continued to haunt the area, terrifying passersby, even cursing those who dare to disturb her grave.

[angelx1992]

[queerdiazs]

fuck it friday!!!

i was tagged by @wildlife4life and i'm SO excited to share this lol <3 it's a lil snip from oklahoma, where eddie realizes what it is he really wants in the following months after the bridge collapse and goes after it, with a few hiccups along the way

His eyes narrow as he takes in the stretched, well-worn t-shirt she’s pulled on over her bra and panties. It’s big on her—big on Eddie, too, because it’s made to fit a chest that’s wider than his, shoulders that are broader than his—falling nearly to her knobby, bruised knees, but the washed-out maroon makes her dark eyes pop and her brown hair shine.  Still, though. He’s used to seeing it on blue eyes and honey-blond hair.  “That’s Buck’s shirt.”  “Oh,” she says, fingering the frayed hem. “Do you think he’d mind?”  I mind, Eddie thinks. It makes his skin crawl and his mouth taste sour.  “Nah,” he says instead, reaching out to tuck her close to his chest. She smells like wine and fruity perfume, sweet and tiny, and he’ll need to wash the shirt before Buck comes over again. “You look better in it, anyway.”  She muffles her laughter against his chest.

no pressure tagging <3 @batmunson666, @callmenewbie, @strangersatellites, @emchant3d, @devilyouwere, and whoever else wants to do it!! <3

[quixoticanarchy]

god i'm leaving oklahoma in a month and genuinely sort of distraught i'm going to miss the pigeon museum so fucking much. i'm going to have to start grabbing feral pigeons at random just to cope

[v1-kisser]

I miss you and I'm sorry we didn't talk after you graduated and I'm sorry that I wasn't a better friend to you

[weirdestbooks]

The Truth (Wattpad | Ao3)

Part One Here

Fall, 1970

“Okie!” Oklahoma heard his father call. His head shot up from where it had been resting on the table, and he quickly rushed towards his father’s voice.

“Yes? Do you need me?” He asked, coming up to where his father was. His father nodded and sighed.

“I need to tell you something, Oklahoma. Something that I definitely should have told you a while ago.” Father said. 

“What is it?” Oklahoma asked, curious.

“Oklahoma…” Father began, before hesitating slightly, “Oklahoma, the five civilized tribes didn’t kidnap you.” 

“What?” Oklahoma gasped out, nearly falling over in shock.

“I gave you to them to raise,” His father said. No, that…that couldn’t be true.

Could it?

“Why?” Oklahoma asked in a strangled voice. His father loved him. Why would he have abandoned Oklahoma with the Indians? 

“Because you were Indian Territory. But when Oklahoma Territory was created, I knew you would become a state someday. So I forced them to give you back.” Father said. Oklahoma nodded. His father has talked about this many times before.

“You saved me from them,” Oklahoma said. Father sighed and shook his head.

“I stole you from them. They were your family.” He said. Now, Oklahoma was the one shaking his head.

“No. You saved me from them. You are my family! Not them!” Oklahoma insisted. Why was his father saying all these weird lies right now? He knew the truth, and he had taught Oklahoma it.

“That was a lie. I never saved you. I said that to manipulate you. Oklahoma, I’m sorry.” His father said.

Oklahoma’s breathing was quick and panicked. He turned and bolted out of the room. Upon entering his room, he slammed the door shut and locked it.

“He’s lying, he’s lying, he's lying, he's lying. I’m American. Father saved me from the natives. I’m an American,” Oklahoma said, trying to convince himself that his father's statement wasn’t true. He had to be lying. He just had to be.

All that had happened since 1890 couldn’t be a lie. 

Oklahoma felt like he was falling, like he was drowning. Everything was too much. Those few words, that revelation, had ripped away Oklahoma’s safe world, his life.

Father had manipulated me, according to him at least. Oklahoma didn’t feel like he had been manipulated.

Maybe this was part of a bad joke. Maybe Oklahoma had done something wrong. Had he acted unAmerican? Had he acted too much like an Indian? Did he make them not trust him anymore?

“I’m American, I'm American, I'm American,” Oklahoma muttered desperately.

Oklahoma was American. He wasn’t an Indian. Why did his father say those things? Oklahoma must have done something wrong.

Oklahoma needed to do better. He needed to be better. He needed to make sure his father knew that Oklahoma was an American, through and through, regardless of the manipulation Oklahoma suffered at the hands of the Indians and regardless of the lie his father had just told. 

Maybe that was why he told Oklahoma. Perhaps this was a test!

That had to be it! This was a test by his father so Oklahoma could prove to his father that he was no longer corrupted by the Indians who kidnapped him. Oklahoma smiled.

Oklahoma was going to pass this test. 

He was an American. Not an Indian.

Anyone who said otherwise had to be wrong.