0:08

Fireheart originals. This is

0:11

an iHeart original.

0:26

Imagine it's eighteen seventy six

0:29

and you're riding the passenger trains

0:31

from Chicago to San Francisco.

0:35

The steam engine has rumbled through

0:37

the Great Plains, wheeled up

0:39

the rockies, and descended onto

0:42

the vast salt flats of Utah.

0:44

Now you're surrounded by the

0:46

desert of Nevada. The

0:49

train bends around a canyon

0:52

and slows ahead. You

0:54

see a little town with a depot,

0:56

a corral with some horses, and

0:59

a saloon. As the train

1:01

lurches to a stop, the conductor

1:03

tells you that the engine is filling

1:05

up on water. Passengers

1:07

have ten minutes to stretch their legs.

1:12

You step outside onto the station platform,

1:15

and it feels like you've walked into

1:18

an oven.

1:19

The town is dead.

1:21

The horses at the corral swat

1:23

flies with their tails. A

1:27

lone cowboy leans against

1:29

the fence. Suddenly,

1:31

the cowboy spits in the dirt

1:34

and points his finger at a man walking

1:36

down the street.

1:37

There you are, you, low down pole

1:39

cat.

1:40

The cowboy's hand hovers over

1:42

the ivory handle of a pistol.

1:45

I've been waiting for you.

1:47

I'm going to kill you because of what you did

1:50

to my sister.

1:51

The cowboy pulls off an elaborate

1:53

quick draw,

1:58

and that is your introduction to

2:01

Palisade, Nevada. In

2:03

the eighteen seventies, Palisade

2:06

was the keenest little town west

2:08

of the Mississippi.

2:10

Every week, newspapers.

2:11

Announced a cowboy gunfight, or

2:14

an Indian massacre, or some

2:16

gunpowder fueled drama with bank

2:19

robbers duking it out against highway

2:21

bandits. Palisade

2:23

put the wild in the

2:25

wild West, but there

2:27

was a lot more to the story that didn't

2:30

make the papers. Welcome

2:33

to very special episodes and

2:36

iHeart original podcast. I'm

2:38

your host, Danish Schwartz, and

2:41

this is Westward Hoax.

2:47

Welcome to very special episodes. Indeed,

2:49

my name is Jason English and I'm joined

2:51

by two California based podcast

2:54

legends, Danish Schwartz and Zaren Burnett.

2:56

Hey, guys, what of just thank you for that

2:58

intro. I mentioned your state of residence

3:01

for a reason. Let me pull back the

3:03

curtain here. I'm in New Jersey.

3:05

We're recording this on a Friday, and

3:08

I just slipped through my first earthquake.

3:09

Oh how are you feeling?

3:12

You know, it's a lot of excitement. I would imagine in California,

3:14

a four point eight probably doesn't trigger

3:17

multiple emergency calls

3:19

and texts and emails and push

3:21

alerts and alta

3:23

state.

3:25

I've actually, I've never felt an earthquake.

3:28

I've lived in California for a pretty long time, and

3:30

I always either just like sleep through them.

3:33

I'm a really heavy sleeper, so it's

3:35

never been a thing that I've dealt with. And I kind of feel

3:37

left out. Like everyone on Twitter and like

3:39

you know, social media is always like, oh my god, did you feel

3:41

that?

3:42

And I'm just like, no, Saren,

3:44

have you lived through your share?

3:46

Oh my god, same experience as Dana. I've lived in

3:48

California for a long time. I lived in La through a number

3:50

of earthquakes, but I always happened to leave town

3:53

right before the earthquake, so I'd always miss it, and

3:55

then people would tell me, Burnette, you missed it again.

3:57

I was like, oh man. So when I finally

3:59

got to live through an earthquake, I was so excited.

4:01

Everyone else is like, man, this sucks, and I'm like, no,

4:04

this is the best. You feel that rumbling, oh my god,

4:06

the waves.

4:07

Yeah, that feels evolutionary like in

4:09

your bones, you know when to get away

4:11

from danger and advance.

4:14

But I have the exact opposite with cars on fire. So

4:17

you know, given.

4:19

So well the curtain is pulled back. This

4:21

room is not soundproof for aftershocks.

4:24

I'm just letting you know. If this is

4:27

gonna become a thing, you're gonna hear it in the recording.

4:29

But today's story it's going to keep you a little

4:31

bit off balance too.

4:33

I think the only thing that I love more

4:35

than sort of a hoax is

4:38

one that basically involves an entire

4:40

town getting together to be an improv

4:42

troop.

4:44

It's very wholesome.

4:45

That's the dream.

4:47

It really is the dream.

4:48

I always say yes. I like how the Nevada,

4:51

the Palisades, Nevada is like, well, just all

4:53

of Nevada. It's like the Australia of America.

4:56

It's just amazing. And I don't know if you know

4:58

this. In Australia they have the spirit of messing with

5:00

authority figures that they call Alaricanism,

5:02

and this feels like Alaricanism in America.

5:05

Alericanism. That's a great vocab

5:07

words the best.

5:11

I want to take you back to the start of that

5:13

gunfight because there was

5:15

a part we missed.

5:17

My poor, poor little sister.

5:24

The dandy falls to the dirt. His

5:26

body goes limp, blood starts

5:28

to soak through his shirt.

5:32

Mayhem ensues. Men pour

5:34

out of the saloon. Little kids

5:36

pull back curtains and peer out

5:38

of windows to see what the commotion

5:41

is about. Meanwhile, you and

5:43

the gaggle of out of towners push

5:46

back into the train car. As

5:48

the engine lurches forward, You look out

5:51

the window and see two men dragging

5:53

a lifeless body down the

5:55

dusty street. A group of

5:57

wranglers have accosted the cowboy,

6:00

apparently to take him to the sheriff. Meanwhile,

6:03

a fistfight has broken out in front of the

6:05

saloon. You hear distant gunshots

6:08

and whoops and shouts. As the train

6:10

pulls away. Palisade

6:14

disappears behind you. Once

6:18

you're out of sight, the cowboy

6:20

and his victim clink glasses.

6:23

In the saloon.

6:26

The rest of the townsfolk would be huddled

6:28

around them, slapping each other's

6:30

backs with a laugh.

6:31

Did you see the look on their faces?

6:33

Boy?

6:34

We got them good.

6:37

Palisade was reportedly home

6:39

to hundreds, maybe thousands,

6:42

of gunfights like this. And

6:45

all of them were fake. The

6:48

gunfights, the Indian massacres,

6:51

even the blood were all part

6:53

of an elaborate, staged

6:55

hoax. Palisade

6:58

wasn't the most dangerous town in

7:00

the West, it was the prankiest.

7:08

In the eighteen seventies. Palisade,

7:10

Nevada was just a humble way point

7:13

along the Central Pacific Railroad.

7:15

It's a mining town, and so life would be very hard.

7:18

That's Nicholas Witchy.

7:20

He's a dean and professor of English

7:23

at Western Michigan University. He

7:25

specializes in the Wild West and

7:27

has written about Palisade.

7:30

Most people would be working ten

7:32

hour days, six days a week, glowing

7:34

up rock, smacking rock with a pickaxe,

7:37

hauling it in wagons or wheelbarrows

7:40

that are getting paid lousy day wages

7:42

to move rock around all day long.

7:44

Life in this small, isolated

7:47

desert town didn't resemble

7:49

the Wild West of popular

7:51

imagination. In fact, here's

7:54

how a reporter of the weekly Eliko

7:56

Independent described it back

7:59

in eighteen seventy six.

8:01

The town is unusually

8:03

dull, but still those

8:06

who are in busy business don't growl.

8:08

They simply pray for better times.

8:11

In other words, life in Palisade

8:14

was kind of well

8:16

boring. People were

8:18

barely scraping by. There

8:21

wasn't a theater for entertainment,

8:23

and the saloon could only distract

8:25

you for so long. There

8:27

was also a lot of tension in the air

8:30

too. Mining and railroad

8:32

towns like Palisade were home

8:35

to a lot of foreign laborers,

8:37

particularly Chinese workers.

8:40

Not everybody took too kindly

8:42

to the visitors.

8:44

Tensions over the Chinese coming

8:46

in and taking jobs was really

8:48

ramping up.

8:50

Chinese workers were frequently victims

8:52

of xenophobia and exclusionary

8:55

laws. The hard lifestyle,

8:58

the boredom, the racial tensions.

9:01

All of this made life in this hard

9:03

scrabbled town even more

9:05

tough, and people were desperate

9:08

to blow off some steam.

9:11

So, rather than fight each other,

9:14

the town found a common target

9:17

the gullible tourists passing

9:19

through on the Transcontinental

9:21

Railroad.

9:22

What are you gonna do when train pulls

9:25

into town and you've been schlepping rock

9:27

for ten hours a day, Why not have a little

9:29

fun.

9:30

In eighteen seventy six, most people

9:33

traveling west had no concept

9:35

of Nevada. Maybe they had

9:37

read about cowboys and Indians in

9:39

the yellow Pages of tawdry

9:41

dime novels, So the

9:43

people of Palisade decided

9:46

to give them a show.

9:48

The travelers would step out of the platform and next

9:50

thing you know, there'd be buckets of blood all over

9:52

the platform, and then screaming

9:54

and dead bodies being hauled off. And then the tourists

9:57

would all pile into the train and be shaking

9:59

and frightened and worried about this wordless wild

10:01

West that they'd come into, and the train would pull out of town, all

10:05

the dead bodies would ry, and everybody go to the

10:08

saloon and have a good laugh because they just put one over

10:10

on a tourists.

10:12

Residents of Palisade leaned

10:15

into the stereotype of the wild

10:17

West, you know, cowboys

10:19

and big hats yelling yeeha

10:21

as they fight Native Americans, bounty

10:24

hunters on horseback, lassoing

10:26

murderous outlaws, dragging them

10:28

to the gallows for justice. The

10:31

thing is, these stereotypes

10:33

aren't accurate now, and they

10:35

weren't accurate then.

10:38

What we think of the American West is a bunch of guys

10:41

blasting ay at each other. Yes, there

10:43

was a gunfight at the Ok Corral, but that

10:45

lasted thirty seconds. In the meantime,

10:48

there were scores of people living, working,

10:50

going to shows, going to restaurants, doing

10:52

what they do, coming, going the mines,

10:55

all sorts of things.

10:57

The fact is, life in the wild

10:59

West wasn't that wild.

11:02

It wasn't even that dangerous.

11:04

The element of the American West that we often as associate

11:07

with lawlessness and violence, it

11:09

was real. It was a part of what

11:12

was going on in the West. But most

11:14

scholars are pretty quick to

11:16

point out that in terms of numbers,

11:18

the prevalence of gun use, the prevalence

11:20

of violence, the prevalence of hangings

11:23

was really not much greater

11:25

than it was in other parts of the country at

11:27

that time.

11:28

Even the stereotypical image

11:31

of cowboys, a white John

11:33

Wayne figure ready to get into a shootout

11:35

at any moment, isn't entirely

11:38

correct.

11:39

Yes there were cowboys, Yes they wore

11:41

big hats and chaps, and some of them even carried

11:43

guns. But at the same time, fully

11:45

half of them were either Hispanic or African

11:47

American.

11:49

In fact, most of these stereotypes

11:51

of a root and tootin wild West

11:54

started with novelists like

11:57

Ned Buntline.

11:59

In eighteen sixty nine, Buntline interviewed

12:02

William F. Cody, a buffalo

12:05

hunter and army scout who had served

12:07

during the American Indian Wars. The

12:10

result was a sensationalist

12:12

story called Buffalo Bill,

12:15

The King of the border Men. It

12:17

would eventually become part of a new

12:19

genre of cheaply made books

12:22

called dime novels that swept

12:25

the country. They introduced

12:27

readers to a world where cowboys

12:29

and Indians, gun slingers

12:31

and outlaws reigned.

12:34

The dime novel certainly had their function as

12:36

telling the story that the American West and ways that

12:38

are blood and thunder is the phrase it's often

12:40

use to describe the dime novel experience.

12:43

You know, the old journalism chestnut.

12:45

If it bleeds, it leads, That

12:48

was the dime novel in a nutshell. In

12:51

addition to getting readers hooked on a

12:53

fictional wild West, Ned

12:55

bunt Line helped convince Buffalo

12:58

Bill to give up his job hunting

13:00

Buffalo for the glitzy

13:02

lights of show business.

13:05

Ned Buntline is the guy who

13:07

also gets William F. Cody Buffalo

13:10

Bill to portray himself on stage,

13:12

and so eighteen seventy two, Buffalo Bill

13:14

starts performing in New York what It's

13:17

like to be Buffalo Bill in the Wild.

13:19

Buffalo Bill would soon become a

13:21

full time showman with his

13:24

own traveling circus. Audience

13:26

members could watch re enactments of Indian

13:29

attacks and see live acts

13:31

like the sharpshooter Annie Oakley, who

13:34

by the way, was born and raised not

13:36

in the Wild West, but in

13:39

Ohio. All of

13:41

this is to say dime novels

13:43

and Old West acts,

13:46

as well as newspaper coverage of the Indian

13:48

Wars such as Custer's Last

13:50

Stand, built a stereotype

13:53

that the West was a violent, lawless

13:56

place, perpetually clouded with

13:58

gun smoke. So the

14:00

citizens of Palisade decided

14:03

to help.

14:04

I see a group of people who are like, Okay,

14:06

this is what the world expects of us, Let's

14:09

give it to them.

14:10

In October of eighteen seventy

14:12

six, a journalist with the Virginia

14:15

City Territorial Enterprise witnessed

14:18

the Palisaded prank in action.

14:21

Half a dozen Native Americans, for a

14:23

reasonable compensation, would submit

14:25

to being bound hand and foot and laid

14:27

on the platform during the stay of the

14:30

train. Around their bodies, a

14:32

guard of citizens armed with immense

14:34

revolvers long rifles and bloodthirsted

14:37

looking knives would march. Shotguns

14:40

and revolvers would loaded with powder ball

14:43

omitted, and in a moment the air

14:45

would reek with powder, smoke, and profanity

14:48

and blood previously procured from

14:50

the slaughterhouse besprinkled the

14:52

platform as plentifully as water.

14:54

Sympathetic friends carried off the dead

14:57

and wounded to some neighboring saloon,

14:59

while the frightened and bewildered immigrants

15:02

crawled from under seats and behind cars,

15:05

their blanched faces in tram blend

15:07

limbs attesting their belief in

15:09

the genuineness of the thigh.

15:13

Hoaxes like this weren't exactly

15:15

new. In eighteen sixty six,

15:18

the Union Pacific Railroad entertained

15:20

its workers by staging a phony

15:23

fight between the Pawnee and Sioux. But

15:26

in Palisade this wasn't a one

15:28

off. According to the historian

15:30

Gerald B. Higgs, who wrote the book Lost

15:33

Legends of the Silver State, the

15:35

ruse lasted for three

15:38

years. Over that time,

15:40

the Palisade Thesbian players,

15:43

as they allegedly called themselves,

15:46

put on more than one thousand

15:48

acts. Basically, the

15:51

residents of Palisade had

15:53

become an improv troop that

15:55

put on a show every night.

15:58

According to Higgs, local authorities

16:00

and the railroad workers were all in

16:02

on the joke, and the hoax was

16:04

making Palisade sort of fakes.

16:08

Palisade was getting write ups in editorials

16:10

across the country, with travelers

16:13

complaining about their terrifying experiences

16:16

passing through the Nevada town. Frankly,

16:19

it's a brilliant tale. Decades

16:22

before Wild West amusement parks

16:25

like Frontier Town Wherever invented,

16:28

the residents of a real Frontier

16:30

town were playing the part and

16:33

punking gullible, high falutin

16:36

outsiders on the daily. There's

16:39

just one problem.

16:42

There's no evidence the

16:44

Palisade pranks ever

16:46

happened.

16:47

One of the questions that I could never resolve

16:50

was were they actually real?

16:53

The story of the Palisade hoax

16:57

might be a hoax. If

17:07

you were alive during the eighteen seventies,

17:10

you were living through what was, if

17:12

you'll pardon my French, a golden

17:15

age of bullshit. There

17:17

were quacks, hucksters and Charlatan's

17:20

galore. Schmucks and spiritualists

17:23

occupied every street corner, hawking

17:26

snake oil, salvation and direct

17:29

lines to the dead p T. Barnum

17:31

had turned the art of the prank

17:34

into a money making bonanza.

17:37

Meanwhile, at every carnival funhouse

17:39

you could see the bodies of petrified

17:41

giants and the flaky husks

17:44

of desiccated mermaids.

17:46

It's an interesting time for a lot of people fooling

17:49

around or being fooled.

17:51

That again is Professor Nick Witchie

17:54

of Western Michigan University,

17:56

and he explained that people in

17:59

Palisade, Nevada were

18:01

living smack in the middle of bullshit

18:04

Central.

18:05

Why were the residents of Palisades

18:07

seemingly interested in punkin travelers coming

18:10

through? The shortest, quickest

18:12

answer is they were living in a

18:14

part of the country that was already

18:17

well deeply invested in hoaxes,

18:19

in satires, in poking fun

18:21

at people's misconceptions.

18:24

Nevada was a hoaxter's paradise,

18:26

he tells us. One of the big reasons

18:29

is because it was home to a little newspaper

18:32

called the Virginia City Territorial

18:35

Enterprise, located

18:37

in a silver boomtown in West

18:39

Nevada. The Virginia City

18:42

Territorial Enterprise was a

18:44

paper where good and honest journalism

18:47

shared the page with Shenanigan

18:49

filled fake news. If

18:51

you picked up the newspaper on October

18:53

twenty eighth, eighteen sixty three,

18:56

you could read an account of a bloody massacre

18:59

that happened in nearby Carson,

19:01

Nevada. Apparently a man

19:03

had gone mad and butchered his wife

19:05

and six of his chi children. Then

19:08

he hopped on a horse and took

19:10

the knife to himself.

19:12

About ten o'clock on Monday evening,

19:15

Hopkins dashed into Carson on horseback

19:18

with his throat cut from ear to ear and

19:21

bearing in his hand a reeking

19:23

scalp from which the warm,

19:25

smoking blood was still dripping.

19:30

But the story was fake, totally

19:34

made up. And just guess

19:36

what happened to the journalist who

19:39

concocted this fiction. Did

19:41

he get fired? Was he tarred

19:44

and feathered, banished from

19:46

the writing business forever? Of

19:48

course not. He became famous.

19:51

The reporter's name was Samuel

19:54

Clemens, who you probably

19:56

know better as Mark

19:58

Twain.

20:01

This is a part of the country where Mark Twain

20:03

got his name. But he really started in

20:05

journalism with satires

20:07

and hoaxes, publishing news

20:09

stories about things that never happened, or silly

20:12

or horrific things that would frighten people

20:14

if they didn't know better.

20:15

At the Virginia City Paper, Twain was

20:18

making up stories all the time,

20:20

and he wasn't alone.

20:22

He had a whole fellow crew of journalists

20:25

at the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise

20:27

who were writing up hoaxes.

20:29

Like Twain, journalists Dan de

20:31

Quill and Fred Hart were routinely

20:34

publishing phony satires.

20:37

There was the story.

20:38

About a dead man who had turned into

20:40

solid.

20:41

Rock a petrified man

20:43

was found some time ago in the

20:45

mountains south of gravelly Ford.

20:48

And a story about a man who turned

20:50

into a human popsicle under

20:53

the glaring desert sun.

20:55

He was dead and frozen stiff. An

20:58

icicle over a foot in length hung

21:01

from his nose.

21:03

Years after leaving the newspaper,

21:05

Mark Twain reed called the joy of

21:08

making up stories in the Territorial

21:10

Enterprise Office.

21:12

We never hesitated about devising

21:15

hoaxes when the public needed matters

21:18

of thrilling interest for breakfast.

21:21

The seemingly tranquil Enterprise

21:23

Office was a guest lif

21:25

factory of slaughter, mulation,

21:28

and general destruction in

21:30

those days.

21:32

Nowadays, these journalists are

21:34

remembered as the sagebrush

21:36

school of writers. They

21:39

were a product of their time.

21:41

The media landscape was changing

21:43

fast. Telegraphs, literacy

21:46

rates, and newspaper distribution

21:48

were booming, and these writers

21:51

decided to exploit it.

21:53

The right mix of people suddenly landed all in the same

21:55

place and felt like, you know what, we

21:57

can have some fun with this.

21:59

So they used humor and tall

22:01

tales to write satires poking

22:04

fun at the people in power. Readers

22:07

were okay with this because BS

22:10

was a currency in the West.

22:12

There was a.

22:13

World where value shifted

22:16

rapidly. One day

22:18

the price of silver could be fought through the roof,

22:20

and the next day of the price of silver would be so low

22:22

that it wouldn't be worthwhile to I'd pull it out of the

22:24

ground. In a world of shifting

22:26

values, what can you hang your hat on. Some

22:29

people think that the hoaxes all

22:31

came about because of that very reason, that this

22:33

was a world where the one thing you could know

22:35

for certain was the ability to bs, was

22:37

the ability to bullshit someone into thinking you

22:39

had the key to a really interesting

22:41

piece of knowledge.

22:43

But also, let's be real,

22:45

the writers also enjoyed a

22:48

certain pastime.

22:49

Dave drank a lot. They

22:53

were a thirsty group.

22:55

Now, a lot of the stories by the sage

22:58

Brush writers got picked up by

23:00

other newspapers and published as

23:02

truth.

23:03

Some stories were published in.

23:05

Places as far away as all Australia.

23:08

Local readers, however, weren't so gullible.

23:11

They usually knew the stories were fake.

23:14

The local journalist would put in enough

23:16

clues to let the reader in on the joke,

23:18

but the reader farther away would

23:20

not necessarily know.

23:22

And that brings us back

23:24

to the Palisade prank. Because

23:27

here's the weird thing about it. According

23:30

to lore, the people of Palisade

23:33

pranked unsuspecting train passengers

23:36

more than one thousand times.

23:38

You'd imagine this would get a lot

23:41

of write ups in various newspapers,

23:43

but when we scoured databases

23:46

in search of evidence of the prank, we

23:48

only found one article and

23:51

it was from the Virginia City

23:53

Territorial Enterprise. Yeah,

23:56

the newspaper riddled with hoaxes

23:59

and fake news. Doctor

24:01

Witchie bumped into the same problem

24:04

back when he was researching the Palisades.

24:07

When I first was researching this and writing

24:09

this paper, historians in the editing

24:12

process kept asking me, but is it real?

24:15

Did it happen? Could things like this have

24:17

happened. Were there other examples of this sort

24:19

of thing happening?

24:20

He didn't have an answer.

24:22

I personally have never found anything to corroborate

24:24

that they actually happened.

24:27

Most accounts about the prank, including

24:30

ours, come from Gerald B. Higgs,

24:33

an amateur historian who wrote

24:35

about the hoax back in nineteen seventy

24:37

six. Higgs says

24:39

he learned about it by talking to old

24:42

timers and visiting every

24:44

county recorder's office in Nevada.

24:47

However, he doesn't cite any sources

24:49

in his telling of the Palisade

24:52

pranks. Is it possible

24:55

that the Palisade prank was

24:58

just another prank pulled off

25:00

by the writers of the Virginia City

25:02

Territorial Enterprise.

25:04

It's hard to tell.

25:06

Doctor Witchie told us that newspaper

25:09

hoaxes usually contained

25:11

telltale clues that would tip

25:13

off local readers that the

25:15

story was phony, but he

25:17

couldn't find any hints in the Palisades

25:20

story.

25:21

This is one of the things that's sustinctive about that report

25:23

about the Palisade hoax. If it really is a pox,

25:26

this journalist is describing it in such

25:28

a way that makes a plane like guess

25:30

what the folks over Pallisader are doing to tourists.

25:33

The story is written like a plane

25:35

news item. If the article

25:38

itself is a hoax, it's a

25:40

subtle one. But perhaps

25:42

we shouldn't be surprised. The

25:44

Virginia City Territorial Enterprise

25:47

is, after all, famous

25:50

for duping people. Even

25:52

into the twentieth century, the newspaper

25:55

was publishing pranks. In

25:57

the nineteen fifties, the editors

25:59

published a fake story about

26:01

a camel race coming to town.

26:04

There was no camel race, of course.

26:07

It was all a joke, but another

26:09

newspaper decided to call them

26:11

on it, and now Virginia

26:14

City hosts an annual Camel

26:17

and Ostra Trace, which,

26:19

if you haven't seen adults ride

26:21

ostriches down a desert dragstrip,

26:24

is worth the trip. Meanwhile,

26:27

Palisade today is a ghost

26:29

town. The mines in the area

26:31

went bust, the local post

26:33

office skadaddled in the sixties.

26:36

In two thousand and five, the news website

26:39

SFGate described what left

26:41

of Palisade as quote tumblewheed

26:44

rattlesnake holes, half of a rusted

26:46

car, the remains of an old washing

26:48

machine, and a cemetery all

26:51

that's really left is a story

26:54

that Nevadens love to share.

26:57

It is utterly fascinating to me that

26:59

a story that may or may not be true regardless,

27:02

has become a story that the people

27:04

of Nevada love to tell about themselves, love

27:06

the tell each other that this is the kind of place

27:09

that we've inherited, this is the place we live in.

27:12

The stories we choose to tell and

27:14

the stories we choose to believe say

27:17

a lot about who we are and how

27:19

we identify. So perhaps

27:21

it's appropriate to close with a

27:23

coda. One last story

27:25

about how Palisade, for the

27:27

briefest of moments, was the

27:29

most talked about town in the country.

27:33

It was election day nineteen thirty

27:35

two. President Herbert Hoover

27:37

was riding a train back to his home state

27:39

of California to vote, but

27:42

as the train came upon Palisade,

27:45

it lurched to a stop.

27:47

The Associated Press reported.

27:49

That the night before, two

27:52

men had been caught carrying

27:54

seventeen sticks of dynamite,

27:57

apparently in an attempt to blow

27:59

up the bridge and quote wreck

28:01

the Hoover train. They even

28:04

tried to shoot and stab the

28:06

guard keeping watch over the

28:08

tracks. This was huge

28:10

news an election assassination

28:13

attempt in Palisade, the

28:15

town of three hundred, was making

28:18

front page headlines in papers

28:21

across the country. Two

28:23

weeks later, a follow up appeared

28:25

in the papers. The guard who

28:27

had witnessed the dastardly assassination

28:30

plot had a confession he

28:33

had made it all up. Palisades

28:36

Fifteen Minutes of Fame was

28:38

a hoax too.

28:43

So do you think it was real?

28:44

Yes? I think it was real the first

28:47

time, and then after that.

28:48

I think it at least happened once. And they were

28:50

like, this is so funny. It's like a

28:52

great bit.

28:53

I don't want a great bit to die.

28:56

You only need to do it once because no one

28:58

wants to be the only people who got fooled, so

29:00

they'll everyone will play it up for you.

29:02

Exactly. That's the whole nature of the Old West. Something

29:05

happens once, and everybody gets their hand at the storytelling,

29:07

and it gets bigger and better through

29:09

the over and over storytelling.

29:11

My very special character for this one, kind

29:13

of a very special cameo, my man

29:15

Mark Twain, who pops up out of nowhere,

29:18

gets some quality minutes off the bench.

29:20

There Missouri's finest.

29:23

You know, the classic thing where TV show

29:25

will spin off a minor character into its

29:27

own show. Frasier. The most obvious

29:29

example from Cheers saw Goodman

29:31

from Breaking Bad, Missus Garrett

29:34

Facts of Life to Different Hell.

29:36

Yeah, wow, a

29:38

lot of I mean people who are familiar with the Good

29:40

Wife.

29:40

That whole universe.

29:42

El Sbeth is that the new

29:45

spin off?

29:45

Yeah.

29:46

One of the first spinoffs was Gomer Pyle from

29:48

Andy Griffith, and then that became a more popular

29:50

show. It was the bigger hit.

29:52

Well in that spirit, Zaren is working

29:54

on another episode Mark

29:56

Twain centric. It's kind of like Mark Twain's

29:59

origin story, and so we're just teasing

30:01

that here that we're going to spin him

30:03

off into his own bigger

30:05

thing, so to be on the lookout.

30:06

It's a whole episode where you learn that he

30:09

basically is part of a bar fight that starts American

30:11

literature. It's a wild story. And then also

30:13

you get more of the Virginia City

30:15

Territorial Enterprise, which is an amazing newspaper.

30:17

Did you happen to cast this one?

30:19

I did, actually, thank you for

30:22

asking this one. I went with a comical variety

30:24

of casting. So imagine this as a comedy,

30:26

right, So we have Buffalo bill as

30:28

the showman played by John c Riley,

30:31

right, the Ned Buntline the novelist

30:33

played by Owen Wilson. Then

30:35

how about that, Oh you like that one, Daniel

30:37

Okay, Nicholas Ritchie, the historian Sam

30:40

Elliott as our narrator.

30:42

I kind of feel like this is a Wes Anderson ensemble.

30:45

Oh we're building it feels like a Wes

30:47

Anderson movie.

30:48

You nailed it, right. And then so now for the

30:50

Palisade thespian players, your favorites,

30:53

the improv artists themselves. I just

30:55

imagined a group, right, So we have the Mayor

30:57

of Palisade that would be played by Walton

30:59

Goggint. We have the cool gunfighter

31:02

Lakeith Stanfield, saloon owner Danny

31:04

McBride. How about for our lady of entertainment

31:07

in the night, Billie Eilish in her first dramatic

31:10

role. And then finally gullible

31:12

tourist couple Tom Holland and Zendaya.

31:16

You know what, for mine, I'm gonna really go with

31:18

the Wes Anderson theme. Yes, and the

31:20

people in the town are like Jason

31:23

Schwartzman Okay, Edward Norton, Adrian

31:26

Brodie, is the journalist, and then like

31:28

one of the hapless tourists is like

31:31

is a couple and it's like Bob Balaban and

31:33

like Tilda Swinton them on the train.

31:36

Yeah, that the antimet Bob Balaban,

31:38

I mean, you got me. I'm already pulling money out

31:40

of my wallet.

31:41

Can't you picture him as just like a hapless tourist

31:43

watching this, And then Tilda Swinton just like being

31:45

a guest, a little other person.

31:48

The faces she could pull come on now, oh.

31:49

Yeah, probably wearing weird teeth all time.

31:53

You guys nailed the dramatic recreations.

31:56

I think there's also a competition reality

31:58

show Angle where improv troops

32:00

are brought into small towns

32:03

that have to pull off some major scam

32:05

like this.

32:06

See but Jason here. That's my main takeaway.

32:08

It's not a scam, if it's not

32:11

for profit, if you're not a benevolent

32:13

scam, is a hoax exactly. This is a

32:15

hoax, and I actually think that we need more

32:18

hoaxes in this country. Totally just good

32:20

spirited, entertaining hoaxes.

32:22

We're not trying to hurt anyone, We're not trying to

32:24

steal anyone's money.

32:26

This is just a hoax.

32:27

Yeah, just put the vibe in the air and that people have a good

32:29

laugh.

32:30

I love that, let people have a

32:32

good time. Let's self mythologize

32:34

what America is, and I think that that's what this

32:36

episode is. This episode is about America

32:39

self mythologizing in real time totally.

32:41

And also the tendencies that we have because

32:43

we're okay, the Old West, right, they had the dime novels

32:46

like pumping the story and the newspapers carrying

32:48

it back east. But it basically the Old

32:50

West was the Oakland or the Chicago

32:52

of back then where it's just a hype of crime. It

32:54

wasn't really as bad as people made it up. Or they're

32:57

like, oh man, I hate to go out to the Old

32:59

West or you know, I guess the Wild West at that point,

33:01

just like people don't want to go to Chicago or where

33:04

I live, Oakland, where it's come on out here, man, We're

33:06

ready for you. It'll be fun.

33:07

No baseball, but.

33:08

Yeah, don't talk about that. Come on

33:11

now, Sacramento taking

33:13

our team like that.

33:16

Very special episodes is made by some

33:18

very special people. This show

33:20

is hosted by Danish Wartz Zaren

33:23

Burnett and me Jason English.

33:25

Today's episode was written by Lucas

33:28

Riley. Our producer is

33:30

Josh Fisher. Editing

33:32

and sound design by Chris Childs,

33:35

Mixing and mastering by Beheid Fraser.

33:38

Original music by Elise McCoy.

33:41

Research in fact checking by Austin

33:43

Thompson and Lucas Riley. Show

33:46

logo by Lucy Quintinia. Special

33:49

thanks to our voice actors Zaron Josh

33:52

and Carl Catele. I'm

33:54

your executive producer. We'll see

33:56

you back here next Wednesday.

33:59

Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart

34:02

Podcasts.