Alfred Packer

[W. Gray]

Another weird fellow celebrated in Colorado is Alfred Packer. Probably more people have heard of him than they have the frozen dead guy.

There was a motion picture made in 1980 and his story has been on the History Channel. There was also a movie musical released in the 1990s.

In November 1873, Packer guided around twenty-one miners from Utah headed for the Colorado Territory gold country near present-day Breckinridge in Hinsdale County. Hinsdale County is about 85 miles west of Denver.

Arriving inside Colorado, Chief Ouray, a famous Ute Indian in these parts, recommended the bunch postpone their trip until spring because of the weather. Most of the men heeded the warning but Packer and five others did not.

Those five became lost in the deep snow and ran out of supplies. When spring 1874 came, only one man came out of the mountains alive and that was a seemingly well-fed Alfred Packer.

A state judge reportedly told Packer, "Packer, you depraved Republican Son of a Bitch. There were only five Democrats in Hinsdale County and you ate them all."

Packer signed a confession but quickly escaped from custody. Eight years later, he surfaced in Wyoming using an alias. He was brought back to Colorado, put on trial, and sentenced to death. The Colorado Supreme Court reversed the conviction.

He went on trial again in 1886 and received forty years. The Colorado Supreme Court upheld this conviction but the state paroled him in 1901. He wound up as a security guard for the Denver Post.

He died at age 65 after, apparently, turning vegetarian.

Some spellings have him as Alferd Packer.

There is an Alfred Packer Memorial Grill at the University of Colorado featuring a slogan, "Have a Friend for Lunch." One of the entrees offered is a meat item called "El Canibal."

Lake City, Colorado, in Hinsdale County has an annual celebration.

[Diane Amberg]

If we were lost in the winter Mts., I'd be happy to let you eat me, if I had already died. My fat would keep you going for a long time!   Not that much different from being an organ donor, as far as I'm concerned.

[W. Gray]

Well, one thing is for sure, you would not know the difference.

In the movie The Shining with Jack Nicolson and Shelly Duvall, the family is in a VW driving from Boulder to a hotel in Estes Park (the hotel they went to though was actually in Oregon subbing for Estes Park).

They begin a discussion of cannibalism and their eight year old pipes up that he knows all about the subject from watching TV.

Shelly is actually thinking of Alfred Packer but mistakenly says she thought the Donner Party incident happened somewhere in the area where they were driving. 

Jack corrects her by pointing out that the Donner Party thing happened a lot further out west.

By the way, I have seen that movie about a dozen times and I still do not fully understand the ending.

I have not read the book and neither did I watch the TV version, which might have explained it more detail.