This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/28/2023
[HOAX] FOUND! BY THOS. DUNBAR, THE SANDS OF MISSOURI RIVER, THE WONDERFUL PETRIFIED MAN. Circa 1925 (inked date lower edge). Small broadside (12 × 8") on tan paper, advertising the exhibition of the body discovered by Thomas Dunbar of a supposed “petrified man,” “not a mummy, but a fossil form of a human body…showing a transformation, nature’s wonderful way of embalming.”
Dunbar claimed to have discovered the body half-buried along the banks of the Missouri River near Fort Benton, Mont., in 1897. He exhibited the body in Yellowstone National Park before selling the remains to W.A. Miles, who claimed that it was the body of Civil War general and former Montana territorial governor Thomas Francis Meagher. Miles organized a train tour of the body, which was unsuccessful. The body was finally exhibited at fairs and carnivals.