Poppa and the Petrified Indian

Poppa and the Petrified Indian

By John Thomas, written 1973

Around the turn of the century a hoax was probably a lot easier to perpetuate than it would be now. Poppa was swindled out of some of his savings by one hoax: a phony gold mine; but earlier he was the creator of another hoax: the discovery of a petrified Indian.

When I was a child I remember Poppa playing cards in the back room of the store. He was a small-boned man with sandy red hair and an enormous moustache. His store was the Weeks Wallpaper Store on N. Street in Lincoln, Nebraska. My Aunt Ila and Uncle Albert managed the store. Ila was tall, slim and blond. During the depression she ran a dance hall. Albert was handsome with black hair and a carefree manner. He occasionally sold wallpaper with his clever breezy manner, but most of the time he could be found around the corner at the pool hall. This is where he made his living, playing pool. Even thirty years ago the store seemed old-fashioned with its linoleum rug floor and chocolate brown painted wicker furniture. Poppa played five-point pitch and listened as his old men friends talked and talked and talked. Whenever they would pause he would say, "Well well, well well."

I called him Poppa because my Mother and my aunt did. I thought all grandfathers were called Poppa.

He was born on a farm near Winterset, Iowa in 1863 and was named Alva B. Weeks. Twenty-one seemed a good age to leave home and Poppa bought a 204 acre farm just one mile from his birthplace. About three years later he moved to Denver, Colorado to work in a soap factory. He became interested in stone carving around the year 1886 at Manitou, Colorado. He liked the white gypsum rock local to that area. He learned to soak the stone to make it soft enough to whittle. He made delicate carvings, mostly of animals. A few years later he was able to make a living and raise a family from his carvings which he sold to tourists during the summer months.

In 1892 Poppa married Nina Schmidt in Colorado City. They went back to Iowa to farm and raise a family. Ila was born in 1897 and Albert in 1899. In the spring of 1904 they went to Westcreek Colorado with a neighbor named Blohm who had formed a mining corporation. Mr. Blohm owned a grocery store there but most of his income came from the shares he sold in his phony mine to anyone who would buy, including Poppa's brothers and sisters. My mother, Mary Freda, was born at Westcreek CO in 1904.That same year Poppa moved to Colorado City. He set up a stand in the Garden of the Gods where he sold his carvings. At that time, tourists would take a tour through the park by renting burros, or by hack, which was a horse and carriage, called a hack. Poppa and his family stayed there until 1911.

Back to the summer of 1890. Poppa and a friend named Charlie were digging in the mountains near Colorado City. They unearthed the figure of an Indian turned completely to stone, a reddish brown figure lying on its back with its knees drawn up. The two young men took the Indian to Fatty Rice's Curio Shop which was near the Garden of the Gods. So much excitement was caused by the discovery that Fatty Rice charged admission to see the petrified Indian.

Of course Poppa had carved the Indian a year before it was "discovered" , had buried it, and then dug it up as a discovery. I imagine that Fatty Rice, who was aware of the hoax from the beginning, and Poppa shared the money that was paid to view the discovery. I doubt either of them made much money from the hoax or ever planned to. But, Poppa did gain a little immortality from his stone carving, which could be considered folk art, for the petrified Indian is still being exhibited at a curio shop in the Garden of the Gods, although now it is enclosed in a case with a glass top.