Newkirk Herald Oct. 18, 2001
Petrified Man Resurrected During Alumni Gathering
By Karen Dye
Newkirk alumni gathered in the conference room at the Newkirk Heritage Center last Saturday to find out more information about Newkirk's "petrified man," which was put on display at the county jail in the early 40s. Gallagher Rule remembered the event vividly. Being 11 or 12 years old at the time, and being familiar with Huckleberry Finn and Injun Joe, the discovery in his hometown made quite an impression on young Gallagher."Here was something live happening in our own backyard," Rule said. Seven others in the group also remembered this exciting occasion in Newkirk's history. They all had an opportunity to take a peek at the body as it was laid out on a table at the Kay County Jail. It was described as being hard, gray and cold. Apparently the body had a prominent feature, prompting those in charge to segregate the girls and boys as they viewed the body."He was a manly man," said Rule.The line at the jail to view the body was one long line up the stairs with the girls coming in after the boys. Frances Fitzpatrick thought that perhaps the body was even displayed in a store window. They all wondered if what they remembered as children was how it really happened. Some of the others present who saw the body included Hobart Means, Olive Means Bradley, Alcina Bliss Grell, and Virginia Bryson Simmons. A search of the Newkirk Herald Journal and the Ponca City News revealed articles that appeared in April of 1943 supporting many of the alumni's memories. E. E. Bode who lived on South Magnolia had been spading up his back yard to plant a victory garden when he turned up a corpse. Polk Harsh, the sheriff, was called. Harsh, Undersheriff Harold Meade and Clyde Heltzel, assistant county attorney, completed the digging and unearthed the corpse. Assumptions and rumors spread like wildfire. A deep cleft on the upper right side of the skull indicated the unidentified victim had received a heavy blow, perhaps with an axe, the sheriff surmised in the beginning. The head, one arm and the legs were severed from the body. The bone of one of the legs examined was smooth on the end indicating that it might have been sawed through. Harsh placed the corpse in his vault and planned to ask professors from the biology or anthropology department of the University of Oklahoma to examine the corpse. To add to all the mystery, the body appeared to be covered with a concrete coating. Dozens of theories abounded. It was surmised that the body was mummified or petrified rather than covered with a coating of concrete. One theory that circulated was that the body was that of a brother of one of the former property owners who disappeared a number of years ago, another was that it was an Indian who had been murdered before the opening of the Cherokee Outlet and was buried in that part.Others thought the body was "evidence of some of the work of the Chicago crowd," Rule said. The legs, arm and head that were detached from the body were pieced together and laid on a cot so that the public could see the entire corpse in the jail quarters. Hundreds of visitors saw it. The mystery was finally cleared when Nellie (Rose) Jones of Arkansas City, daughter of W. M. Rose who formerly owned the Magnolia Avenue property, told this story to the sheriff. In 1898 while the family was living at Neosho, MO, Mr. Rose traded a 40-acre tract of land in Arkansas for the petrified body. Rose made plans to start an overland sideshow with the body and planned to have his opening at Shawnee, OK. He encountered some difficulties with railroad officials over the shipment of the body. Three physicians were called in to make an examination and sawed off one of the legs to make a thorough exam. They were convinced that it was a petrified body, and with the officials convinced that it was being shipped according to regulations, Rose was permitted to send it to Shawnee. Enroute to that town, Rose became ill with pneumonia and was unable to claim his possession when he arrived. Since he was unable to claim it, it was shipped back to St. Louis and while enroute there, the train carrying the body was involved in a wreck and the body was broken. When Rose recovered, he filed his claim with the railroad company and from St. Louis the body was shipped to Newkirk. For several years Rose kept the petrified man in a big red box intending to place the parts back together and start his long time ambition of having the side show. Mrs. Jones said her mother objected constantly to the exhibition of a dead person and for that reason the exhibit was never undertaken. Finally, Rose decided to bury the body in his back yard. Hattie Hill, sister-in-law of W. M. Rose also of Arkansas City, said she remembered well the time Rose decided to bury the body. He dug a grave in the chicken yard with Hill and several others present. She recalled that a prayer was offered and the Rose's daughter Ruby, now deceased, sang a religious song as the body was covered with earth. Mrs. Jones said she had in her possession a handbill printed in the 1800s advertising the exhibition. It appears that no one knows what happened to the body after it lay in state at the county jail. The City of Newkirk has no record of an unidentified body being buried in 1943. Some of those present Saturday thought they remembered that it was moved to the high school where Bode was custodian and that the body was kept under the high school stage for a period of time.
