A Unique Pair of Shoes

What does an early desperado/highwayman/road agent, a frontier merchant named Morris Cahn, a small coulee named Conn’s Coulee, the first female Doctor in Wyoming, a former Governor of Wyoming, and finally a pair of shoes all have in common? Actually, it is the skin and skull cap of the desperado/highwayman/road agent!

The highwayman/desperado/road agent in question was named Big Nose George Parrot, and well, according to the picture below, the nickname was not as stretch. Check out the honker as seen in the portrait and death mask in the pictures on this post.

Who is Morris Cahn? He was a merchant that preyed upon our “boys in blue” from the nearby Fort Keogh in the ‘ol Milestown (the original name of Miles City). Of course Miles City being on the frontier, Mr. Cahn had to travel back east to buy his goods. The River Boats were only able to make it up the Yellowstone during the times of high water and anyone from the MonDak knows that in depending on the weather in February/March the Yellowstone is most likely frozen solid. In 1879 the genteel merchant chose to accompany a detail of soldiers that were traveling to the nearest railhead of Bismarck North Dakota to secure a payroll and operating funds. Big Nose George heard that he was traveling back East to secure more goods for his store.

Now we need to connect Cahn to Conn between the Powder River and the present day Terry, Montana, there is a small coulee (aka dry/intermittent creek) named Conn’s Coulee. Somewhere in the sands of time, someone misspelled Cahn’s last name as Conn, but it is pronounced the same way. This long coulee, somewhere between the Yellowstone and the end of Conn’s Creek is the location that Big Nose George, uh “liberated” the money from successful merchant.

Big Nose and the gang were never convicted of this crime, but what did hamper their style was a bungled train robbery in 1878 in Wyoming where the gang killed two lawmen. Of course, liquor and boastfulness was Big Nose’s undoing in 1880 when he boasted of the daylight robbery. He was soon arrested and sent down to Rawlins, Wyoming, where he tried to escape in April of 1881. Subsequently he was lynched, nothing spectacular, especially in the days of the Wild West where justice was dealt out swiftly.

After multiple failed attempts, Big Nose was finally hung until his death where two Doctors took possession of his body. Doctors Thomas Maghee and John Osborne crudely sawed off the top of his skull in order to examine his brain to see if there was a difference between Big Nose’s and a “normal” persons brain. Dr. Maghee’s 15 year old assistant Lillian Heath kept his skull cap and used it as an ashtray, coincidently, she was the first female Doctor in the State of Wyoming. Dr. John Osborne removed the skin from Big Nose’s thighs and chest (to include the nipples) and sent them down to Denver to get tanned.

How does a former Governor Wyoming get involved? Well, Dr. John Osborne became the first Democratic Governor of Wyoming. In fact a portion of the skin of Big Nose was used to make a pair of shoes. There is one account that Dr. Osborne was dejected that his shoes did not have George’s Nipples on them… a different time indeed. These shoes did become somewhat famous due to Dr. Osborne wore these shoes when he was sworn in as Governor of Wyoming. Supposedly, there was a Doctor’s Bag was also made from George’s skin, that item has been lost to the sands of time.

Bringing this back to the MonDak, depending on which newspaper one looks at, Mr. Cahn was liberated of anywhere between $3,600.00 - $14,000.00! It is still rumored that this loot was cached between the place of the robbery and the Yellowstone… treasure hunters beware, a lot of the coulee is either privately owned or is public land and metal detecting is verboten on the public land! Of course, please exercise the prudent respect and ask before you trespass onto the private land!