Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 March 1894 — WILD BILL A SOLID MAN. [ARTICLE]

WILD BILL A SOLID MAN.

The Body of the Famous Desperado Turned to Stone Long Ago. The climate of Colorado is so exceedingly dry in the greater portion of the State that ordinary objects, such as potatoes, vegetables of various sorts, and even small animals, petrify when covered with sand. A considerable source of revenue to the guides and venders in the Grand Canyon and other famous resorts is the sale of petrified wood and other ma-te-ial to tourists. Human bodies have been known to undergo the petrifying process in numerous instances. The body of Wild Bill, the famous desperado, is to-day solid stone. He was buried in a sandy country, near Telluride, and the Washington Post says that about four years ago his friends decided to put up a monument to his memory. They went out to his grave, which is in tbe ftpen prairie, and one of the party, an old scout, was taken along to exactly locate where he was buried. The sand had shifted and blown in great heaps, as it does all through that country, and the scout had a good deal of difficulty in absolutely locating the spot. Finally he struck a mound that he said had Wild Bill under it Owing to the uncertainty of the situation and his hesitancy, the party decided to dig down and see whether he was right They didn’t want to put a monument over a sand heap unless it had Wild Bill under it So they dug down. Presently the spade ran into a rock—a scarce thing in that country. They shoveled all around it and soon revealed the petrified image of Wild Bill, as perfect as the day he died, with not a trace of decomposition. Even the clothes and shoes were turned to stone. Some of the party wanted to take the body up for purposes of exhibition. But one of Bill’s old pals, Shorty Jake, as he was called, remarked that the first man who tried to do so would find a bed in the hole that Bill filled. So the idea was abandoned. But if some adventurous museum man wants the greatest drawing card on eurth he can find it under Wild Bill's tombstone.