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Many newspaper stories in the United States during the 1800s into the
early 1900s were sensational, in all sense of the word. The tales are
incredible and written in the era when journalism meant whatever sold
papers, truth be damned. But the following stories all have to do with
giants or underground cities, so they’re worth telling again.
The most famous of these reports appeared in the April 5, 1909 edition of The Arizona Gazette,
entitled “Explorations in Grand Canyon.” Explorer G.E. Kinkaid
discovered a huge underground “citadel” while rafting on the Colorado
River. Exploring a tunnel that stretched “nearly a mile underground,”
Kinkaid found this citadel, which was filled with tablets carved with
some type of hieroglyphics, and home to a stone statue he described as
resembling Buddha. Copper weapons lined the walls, but the most
intriguing aspect of this ancient dwelling/worship place/tomb, were the
mummies, all wrapped in a dark fabric. The mummies were supposedly more
than nine-feet-tall. To feed the fire of conspiracy, and to keep anyone
from finding the giants of the citadel themselves, the United States
government allegedly closed that area of the canyon from public view.
But this well-known story of American giants isn’t alone.
The New York Times reported a nine-foot-tall skeleton of a man discovered in a mound near Maple Creek, Wisconsin, in December 1897. The Times also
carried the story “Strange Skeletons Found” near Lake Delevan,
Wisconsin, in its May 4, 1912 issue. The skulls of giant skeletons
excavated from a mound had “a minute resemblance to the head of the
monkey.”
But an April 9, 1885 story in The New York Times entitled:
“Missouri’s buried city: A strange discovery in a coalmine near
Moberly,” revealed a find that predated the supposed citadel in the
Grand Canyon by 24 years. Moberly, the largest city in Randolph County,
Missouri, had a population of 6,108 in the 1880s.
Coal miners, sinking a shaft 360 feet deep, broke into a cavern
revealing “a wonderful buried city,” the article claimed. Lava arches
stretched across the roof of the cavern, looming over the streets of an
ancient city “which are regularly laid out and enclosed by walls of
stone, which is cut and dressed in a fairly good, although rude style of
masonry.”
Workers, along with Moberly city recorder David Coates and Moberly
city marshal George Keating, inspected the site and found a
30-by-100-feet hall in the cavern filled with stone benches and hand
tools. “Further search disclosed statues and images made of a
composition closely resembling bronze, lacking luster,” the article
read.
Explorers discovered a stone fountain in a wide court, still pouring
“perfectly pure water” into its basin. But it was what lay beside the
fountain that interested the people exploring the site. “Lying beside
the foundation (of the fountain) were portions of the skeleton of a
human being,” according to the article. “The bones of the leg measured,
the femur four and one-half feet, the tibia four feet and three inches,
showing that when alive the figure was three times the size of an
ordinary man, and possessed of a wonderful muscular power and
quickness.”
Its skull, the story reported, was shattered; bronze tools, granite
hammers, metallic saws and flint knives were scattered all around. “They
are not so highly polished, nor so accurately made as those now
finished by our best mechanics, but they show skill and an evidence of
an advanced civilization that are very wonderful,” according to the
article.
Explorers spent twelve hours in the buried city and resurfaced only
after the oil in their lamps burned low. “No end to the wonders of the
discovery was reached,” the article stated. “A further extended search
will be made in a day or two.”
No record of the extended search could be found.
Dr. Tom Spencer, a professor in the department of History,
Humanities, Philosophy and Political Science at Northwest Missouri State
University, said that’s because after printing the story, the
newspapers tried to forget it. “A lot of the time I think these stories
were written based entirely off hearsay and little or no direct on-site
reporting,” he said. “As the story grew, the details got more and more
outrageous.”
He equates it to a childhood game where children sit in a circle and
one child whispers a story into another’s ear and by the time the story
completes the circle, it was completely different. “If you recall,
sometimes the ‘finished story’ bore little resemblance to the original
story,” he said. “My guess is one element of this story is factual –
like the strange shaft formation or a long femur was found – and it
became more and more embellished as it went around the journalistic
circle at the time.”
So what happened to the fabulous buried city under Moberly, Mo.?
“There were stories like this periodically at the time and they usually
disappear quietly because someone goes to investigate and there’s
nothing to it,” Spencer said. “In order to avoid the embarrassment the
newspapers just don’t say anything else about it.”
However, Moberly resident John W. wants to find out for certain.
“Myself and several friends have researched the article archived at The New York Times,”
John said. “The article discusses coal miners finding a Crystal City
with several advanced features as well as the bones of what can only be
called a giant.”
John and his group plan to investigate the claim of an underground
city. “We have found the mine. Our hopes are to take a field trip and
find the underground city if we can access the mine,” he said. “We have
driven by and the site exists. You can still see remnants of the old
access road through the field. It would appear this mine has not been in
use since the time period of the news article.”
Moberly calls itself “The Magic City.” Hopefully John and his crew can discover just how magic it is.
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