Dark Histories

The North American mineral rushes of the 19th Century saw hundreds of thousands flock to mountains and mines across the continent in search of fame and fortune, from panning for gold to working long, dangerous shifts down poorly run mines, entire industries exploded overnight, sucking in workers from around the world. During the San Juan Silver Rush of the 1870s, one of these workers was a young man named Alfred Packer, an epileptic, military cast-off, who drifted across America looking for his passport to a new life. He had lived a reasonably anonymous existence, until one fateful expedition saw him wind up almost starving to death, only surviving by eating his fellow party members, a surprisingly common occurrence in the Old West. SOURCES Keller, David (2015) The Story of Camp Douglas: Chicago's Forgotten Civil War Prison. The History Press, UK Schechter, Harold (2015) Man-Eater: The Saga of Alfred G. Packer, American Cannibal. Head of Zeus, London, UK. Brown, Robert Leaman (1965) An Empire of Silver: A His