Big Nose George and the Afterlife of an Outlaw
- Daniel Holland
- 3 hours ago
- 7 min read
Most museum objects ask to be looked at. A few demand to be reckoned with. In Rawlins, Wyoming, a pair of nineteenth century shoes does exactly that. They sit behind glass at the Carbon County Museum, carefully positioned so visitors who do not wish to see them can look away. Yet many people arrive already knowing what they are about to encounter, and make their way directly towards them. The reason is simple and unsettling. The shoes were made from the skin of a man who was lynched in the street in 1881.
That man was Big Nose George, born George Parrott, a frontier criminal whose life was unremarkable by Wild West standards but whose death and treatment afterwards ensured he would not be forgotten.
Frontier Wyoming and a Life on the Margins
George Parrott was born on 20th March, 1834, probably in Iowa, though like many men who drifted west his early years are only lightly documented. By the time he appeared in Wyoming Territory, he was already operating under multiple names. George Warden, George Manuse, and Big Beak George all appear in contemporary accounts. Nicknames were common on the frontier, and Parrott’s most enduring one reflected his prominent facial feature rather than any particular reputation for violence.
In the 1870s, Wyoming was still a territory shaped by railroads, cattle routes, and small settlements vulnerable to crime. Horse theft and roadside robbery were widespread, often treated as occupational hazards rather than extraordinary events. Parrott fitted comfortably into this world. For several years, his offences were minor enough to keep him below the attention of major law enforcement efforts.
What altered his trajectory was ambition.
The Union Pacific Robbery That Changed Everything
In August, 1878, Parrott and several associates attempted to rob a Union Pacific Railroad train near the Medicine Bow River. Trains carrying payrolls were tempting targets, but they were also increasingly well protected. The robbery failed, forcing the gang to retreat into the surrounding countryside.
The attempt itself was not unusual. The response to it was. Union Pacific and local authorities dispatched two experienced men to track down those responsible. Carbon County Deputy Sheriff Robert Widdowfield and Union Pacific detective Henry Vincent followed the gang’s trail into Rattlesnake Canyon near Elk Mountain.
What they encountered there was not a fleeing group but an ambush.
The outlaws had spotted the lawmen first. They stamped out their campfire and concealed themselves in the brush. When Widdowfield noticed that the ashes were still warm, it was already too late. He was shot in the face at close range. Vincent attempted to escape the canyon but was also shot before he could get clear. Their bodies were buried hastily, their weapons and a horse taken, and the gang vanished.
The discovery of the murders sent shockwaves through the territory. Killing lawmen crossed a line that frontier communities rarely forgave. A reward of $10,000 was offered for the capture of the killers, later doubled to $20,000, an enormous sum at the time.
Years of Freedom and a Fatal Lack of Caution
Despite the reward, Parrott avoided capture for nearly two years. During that period, he continued committing robberies, including a daylight ambush in February, 1879, near present day Terry, Montana. There, Parrott and his gang robbed merchant Morris Cahn while he was travelling with a military escort from Fort Keogh. By exploiting the terrain of a steep coulee, the gang managed to separate the convoy and capture both the front and rear elements, escaping with several thousand dollars.
This success may have contributed to Parrott’s growing sense of invulnerability. In 1880, while drinking heavily in Miles City, Montana, Parrott and his associate Dutch Charley Burris began boasting openly about killing the Wyoming lawmen. Two deputies, Lem Wilson and Fred Schmalsle, recognised the significance of what they were hearing.
Parrott was arrested and returned to Wyoming to stand trial.
Trial, Sentence, and a Narrow Escape from the Mob
When Parrott arrived in Rawlins by train, a lynch mob had already assembled. Vigilante justice was still a reality in frontier towns, especially where murdered lawmen were concerned. Parrott, however, managed to persuade the crowd to let him go through the courts. Whether this reflected personal charisma, exhaustion, or a belief that legal execution would provide greater closure is unclear.
The trial itself was swift. Parrott pleaded guilty to first degree murder and was sentenced to death by hanging, with the execution set for 2nd April, 1881.
He never reached that date.
The Escape Attempt That Sealed His Fate
While being held in the Rawlins jail, Parrott quietly worked at his ankle shackles using a pocket knife and a piece of sandstone. On 22nd March, 1881, he attacked jailer Robert Rankin, striking him with the heavy irons and fracturing his skull. Rankin fought back long enough to call for help, and his wife Rosa intervened, holding Parrott at gunpoint and forcing him back into his cell.
News spread quickly. Within hours, masked townspeople forced their way into the jail, held the injured Rankin at gunpoint, and dragged Parrott into the street.
A Botched Lynching in Full View of the Town
More than 200 people gathered as Parrott was taken to a telegraph pole. The lynching that followed was chaotic and prolonged. The first attempt failed when the rope proved too short. Parrott fell to the ground alive. A second attempt also failed to break his neck, leaving him slowly strangling. He managed to free his hands and climb the pole, reportedly begging someone to shoot him.
Eventually he fell again and was re suspended. This time he died by strangulation. The rope rubbed his ears away, a detail later preserved in the death mask made from his face.
It was a brutal and public death, reflecting both the anger of the town and the limits of frontier justice.
From Body to Specimen
No family came forward to claim Parrott’s body. That absence created an opportunity for two local physicians, Dr Thomas Maghee and John Osborne. Like many medical professionals of the late nineteenth century, they were interested in whether criminal behaviour could be explained by physical characteristics of the brain.
Parrott’s body was taken under cover of darkness. The top of his skull was sawn off to expose the brain, and a death mask was made. The remains were stored in a whiskey barrel filled with salt solution, where they stayed for around a year while examinations continued.
Skin from Parrott’s thighs and chest was sent to a tannery in Denver. From it, a pair of shoes and a medical bag were produced. Osborne later recalled instructing the shoemaker to leave the nipples attached to prove the leather was human. The shoemaker declined.
Shoes at an Inauguration
In 1893, Osborne attended his inauguration as governor of Wyoming wearing the shoes made from Parrott’s skin. The act suggests the items were not merely scientific artefacts but also symbols of authority and conquest over crime. Osborne’s motivations remain debated. Some argue he was acting within contemporary medical norms. Others see personal fascination, or even pride, in the transformation of an outlaw into wearable objects.
The top of Parrott’s skull was given to Maghee’s teenage assistant, Lillian Heath, who later became Wyoming’s first female doctor. She reportedly used the skullcap for decades as an ashtray, pen holder, flower pot, and doorstop.
Buried, Lost, and Rediscovered
What remained of Parrott’s body was eventually buried behind Maghee’s office. There it stayed until 11th May, 1950, when construction workers excavating a site on Cedar Street in Rawlins uncovered a whiskey barrel filled with bones. Inside were a skull missing its top, a bottle of vegetable compound, and the infamous shoes.
Heath, then in her eighties, was contacted. Her skullcap fitted the skull perfectly. Later testing confirmed the remains were Parrott’s.
The Carbon County Museum and an Ongoing Question
Today, Parrott’s shoes, the lower portion of his skull, and his death mask are displayed at the Carbon County Museum. The museum has placed the display in a partially screened area to allow visitors to choose whether to engage with it.
Museum director Kelly Bohanan acknowledges the tension surrounding the artefacts. Parrott was responsible for the deaths of two lawmen, yet the objects on display are undeniably human remains. Some visitors see them as historical evidence. Others see them as exploitation.
“He was a criminal,” Bohanan has said, “and there is still some of that Wild West sentiment that says criminals do not deserve dignity. But the other side of that argument is, tell that to his mother.”
Despite changing attitudes towards museum ethics, the shoes remain on display. They continue to draw visitors and provoke debate about how societies remember violence, justice, and those who fall outside the law.
Remembered Not for His Crimes, but for What Came After
Big Nose George was not an unusually successful outlaw, nor a legendary figure of the frontier. His crimes were typical of his time. What sets him apart is what happened after his death. Turned into specimens, souvenirs, and symbols, his remains offer a rare and uncomfortable insight into nineteenth century attitudes towards punishment, science, and humanity.
More than a century later, those shoes remain on display, asking visitors to consider where history ends and exploitation begins.
