The Fort Dodge Messenger: Aug. 19, 1903
Would Return The “Cardiff Giant”
Suggestion to That Effect is Made by G.F. Rankin – May Take Up Matter.
Place Image in the Park
The Famous International Hoax, Now in a Barn in Boston, Could be Purchased and Brought to Fort Dodge – Would Attract Attention.
Why not return the Cardiff giant to Fort Dodge?
The famous giant, the story of whom is entwined with that of the early history of Fort Dodge, has been absent from this vicinity for thirty-five years. His present resting place is in a barn in Boston.
G.F. Rankin is the originator of the scheme to return the Cardiff Giant to Fort Dodge. In speaking of the matter Mr. Rankin said today that he will head the list with $5 for the purpose of subscribing an amount necessary to buy the stone man and return him to this city. The giant is now resting in a barn in the city of Boston where he has been deserted and nearly forgotten. It is Mr. Rankin’s plan to buy the image form its present owner, convey it to Fort Dodge and here set it up in the city park together with a brief sketch of its history.
Much has been written and said about the world renowned fake since it was discovered near Cardiff, New York, nearly thirty-five years ago. According to the many stories told of the giant it was in 1868 that Hull and Black came to Fort Dodge and quarried an immense piece of gypsum for the purpose, they said, of making it Iowa’s contribution to the Washington monument. The stone it is known was dug up in Gypsum Hollow, carted to Boone and on a flat car taken from that place to Chicago and finally east. After much labor and pains it was carved until it assumed the likeness of the petrified remains of an immense man. The stone was buried near Cardiff, New York, in the fall and dug up the following spring, when the money-making reign of its discovers (sic) begun. It was finally declared and proven a hoax by Professor Marsh of Yale.
Because of the fact that the Cardiff giant had his origin in Fort Dodge, and also in view of hte fact that the fake has been seen by a comparatively few, should the stone man be returned to this city and set up in a public place he would be of interest, not alone to the city, but to everyone.
The matter of buying the giant may be taken up and a subscription list for that purpose started.
Tags: 1903, Cardiff Giant, Rankin
The Fort Dodge Messenger: June 17, 1903
Cardiff Giant in Barn
Fort Dodge’s Famous Product Now in Retirement
Huge Fake of History Has Rested For the Last Twenty-Seven Years.
The Cardiff Giant is shown in this Library of Congress photo.
Boston June 17 – How are the mighty fallen! This applies exactly and accurately to the very prosaic Cardiff giant, a monstrosity of once debatable origin, which had a career of excitement, interest and doubt that fooled all of the American public for a short time, and which had its unique career cut short, but not till a great deal of money had been made out of the fraud.
After years of triumphal progress about the country, being exhibited to thousands of wondering people, after causing a division in the scientific world as to the authenticity of the claims of the monster’s antecedents, the cause of all this trouble is now calming (sic) reposing in a very unromantic packing case, protected from the chilling frosts of winter by a loose garb of coarse sawdust in the barn of a well known citizen of Fitchburg. Indeed, he has been here the greater part of the last twenty years or more, or soon after the Boston Herald put an end to his “meteoric” career by an editorial which pronounced him a fake.
But here at Fitchburg his giantship is, and few people have known anything about it. In addition to his suit of sawdust there is some quasi litigation about that prevents his public participancy in the events of the early years of the new century, when a generation is coming to the fore which will some day want to see him out of curiosity, if not for the gratification of scientific research, which was in his early days a ruling motive about him.
When the business of exhibiting the giant failed, S.S. Lawrence, a local contractor, was engaged to build a shed or addition to the hotel in which the giant could be stored. He did so. Soon afterward Mr. Lawrence took the giant to his own barn and stored it there, and there it has been ever since. There was an agreement as to payment for this storage, but nothing has been done about it, so Mr. Lawrence holds on to his stone charge, which he has had nearly twenty-seven years.
Tags: 1903, Cardiff Giant
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