About
Discover the Fascinating Story of Elmer McCurdy
The Elmer McCurdy Museum is located in the Historic West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. We are dedicated to the preservation, remembrance and celebration of the life and post mortum mummified life of Elmer McCurdy through a multi-media exhibit including original art, artifacts, and live and on-screen presentations. Additional exhibits within the museum are all included in our museum tour. Entrance to the Elmer Museum is free but appointments and advance reservations are required. Please contact us for our scheduled museum exhibition dates and hours. Visiting details provided upon the issuing of confirmation email. Limited number of guests allowed per scheduled visits.
Some areas of the Museum are unfortunately inaccessible to wheelchairs, walkers, and strollers. The Museum is also home to multiple cats so please be advised if you have allergies. This is a non-smoking venue.
Reservations & Inquiries please email elmermuseum@gmail.com
Elmer McCurdy’s Story
Elmer McCurdy was born in 1880 in Washington, Maine. From an early age his life was one of turbulence and discontent.
He drifted west, and in 1907, he joined the U.S. Army, where he learned to work with explosives. Honorably discharged in 1910, he soon turned to a life of crime.
After McCurdy was arrested for possession of burglary paraphernalia, including nitroglycerin explosive, he then traveled to Oklahoma where he joined a gang of small-time outlaws.
In March of 1911, McCurdy and his gang staged a robbery of the Iron Mountain-Missouri Pacific train. unfortunately, McCurdy had placed too much nitroglycerin on the safe. The explosion melted most of the safe’s contents and destroyed most of the train car.
Undeterred, McCurdy’s incompetent life of crime continued. A bank heist in September of 1911 netted just $150. On October 4, 1911, he robbed the wrong train, and made only $46 and a jug of whiskey.
A reward was issued for Elmer, $2,000, dead or alive. On the morning of October 7, 1911, a posse surrounded a barn near Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where Elmer McCurdy was hiding out. Vowing not to be taken alive, Elmer opened fire.
When the shooting stopped, they found McCurdy dead in the hayloft. But Elmer’s story was far from over.
Elmer’s body sat unclaimed for months in the Johnson Funeral Home in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, McCurdy’s corpse had been remarkably well preserved with arsenic. The embalmed mummy had become a local attraction. Elmer was dressed in street clothes, and given a rifle to hold. It cost five cents to see “The Embalmed Bandit.” Curious gawkers were eager to place their nickels in Elmer’s mouth.
In 1916, two men posing as McCurdy’s brothers convinced the funeral home to release the body to them in order to give Elmer a “proper and dignified” send off. The two were actually James and Charles Patterson, enterprising carnival promoters who proceeded to put McCurdy in the Patterson Traveling Sideshow as “The Outlaw Who Would Never Be Captured Alive.” Elmer became the star attraction of their human curiosities show.
McCurdy’s mummified body was bought, sold and traded frequently from then on. For more than half a century, he appeared in crime exhibits, side shows, drug awareness exhibits where he portrayed a dead drug fiend, haunted houses and low-budget films well into the 1960’s and 70’s.
In death, McCurdy had traveled more than he ever had alive.
By 1976, Elmer’s shriveled body was painted neon red and hung in the Long Beach, California funhouse, Laff In The Dark. On December 8, 1976, a production crew was filming an episode of the TV show, The Six Million Dollar Man inside that very funhouse. Believing it was a prop, a crew member had attempted to move Elmer’s hanging body and the “dummy’s” arm fell off, revealing a human bone! The shocked crew called the authorities.
Inside Elmer’s corpse, the L.A. Coroner found a bullet, ticket stubs and a 1924 penny, which helped identify him. On April 22, 1977, Elmer McCurdy was finally brought to rest in the Boot Hill section of Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, Oklahoma. two feet of concrete was allegedly poured over his casket to close the final curtain in Elmer McCurdy’s bizarre life’s story.