George "Big Nose" Parrot

A rather unknown westerner by the name of George Parrot AKA, “Big Nose” was a cattle rustler during the late 1800’s. In 1878 Parrot and his fellow gangster murdered two law enforcers while escaping from a train robbery. These murders did not go unchecked and the government gave a $20,000 dollar reward to their killer. However in 1880 when Big Nose and his accomplice Dutch Charley were captured in Montana. Whilst in prison, Parrot tried a dangerous escape after learning he was sentenced to be hung. News of this attempted escape was spread through the town and a large lynch mob took Parrot out of his cell at gunpoint and hung him from a telegraph pole. Dutch Charley faced a similar fate when he was found hiding in a baggage compartment on a train. Crude doctors in Wyoming decided to take Parrot’s body for the research of,”criminality” in his brain. The doctor even made a pair of shoes out of Parrot’s stomach and thighs and wore them to his inaugural ball after being elected governor of Wyoming. Legends have cumulated that Big Nose was involved in the infamous James gang which I talked about earlier, and was said to have been a member of “Butch Cassidy’s Wild Bunch.” These legends have all been ruled out however with most historians agreeing that he was more of a highwayman then an organized gangster. The legend of Big Nose’s skin feet and brain checking have been proven correct. Parrot’s remnants were found in an old whiskey barrel which included the skin shoes, which now reside in a Wyoming museum, and the sawed off head where his brain had been checked.