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In March 2019, we encountered an image posted on Facebook that purportedly showed a pair of negro skin shoes: This image captures a pair of shoes reportedly made with human skin, but the alleged donor in this case was not an African American man -- rather, it was said to be George Parrott, a wild west outlaw known as Big Nose George: Big Nose George was a cattle rustler, highwayman, and general bandit who robbed and killed his way across the American West in the 1870s and ultimately met his demise after a failed jailbreak in 1881. An article published by the Eaton Democrat on 31 March 1881 described his lynching: After Big Nose George's death, Dr. John Eugene Osborne performed a crude autopsy on the bandit in an apparent attempt to study the workings of a criminal brain. We're not sure if Osborne ever managed to find out what made Big Nose George tick, but the doctor did come away with a few bizarre mementos. According to Wyoming's Carbon County Museum, Big Nose George was tanned, and his skin was used for the uppers of a pair of shoes: The bandit's remains were also used to craft other personal items: for example, the top of his skull was turned into an ashtray. We reached out to the Carbon County Museum, where the shoes in this viral photograph and some of these other macabre artifacts are still on display, for more information and will update this article if more information becomes available. We did turn up one report that described Big Nose George as being of dark complexion, but couldn't find any indications that he was of African descent: While the shoes seen in this particular picture may not have been made from the skin of a black person, such items did exist. For instance, a brief story published on 30 March 1882 in the Atchison (Kansas) Daily Globe mentioned a physician who wore a pair of shoes made from the hide of a negro. An article from the 29 October 1887 edition of the Oskaloosa Independent relayed a similar story: Other articles from this time period also mention items made from human leather. Scientific American reported in 1907 that human skin had been used for a variety of products, including purses, slippers, belts, and even a horse saddle. The article stated that the materials used to make these human leather items were obtained from medical schools but did not mention the race of the deceased donors.
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