Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Drive across America and you'll find a landscape haunted by
Speaker 1: the past. Off lonely stretches of highway. There are ghost
Speaker 1: towns that went suddenly boom and bust, or that just
Speaker 1: dried up like desert sand. Many are no more than
Speaker 1: a mile marker with an unusual name, like filed Town, Alabama,
Speaker 1: or Isaacs, California. And the state of Texas has no
Speaker 1: shortage of bizarrely named ghost towns of the rhwont Turpentine,
Speaker 1: even bucksnort But take a drive through hill country in
Speaker 1: central Texas and you just might stumble on an odd
Speaker 1: little ghost town with an even odder name. We're talking,
Speaker 1: of course, about Blowout, Texas. A group of settlers from
Speaker 1: Kentucky reportedly set up shop in the area way back
Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty four. Comanche Creek flowed nearby providing fresh,
Speaker 1: clean water for cooking and irrigation. But farming wasn't the
Speaker 1: primary reason they chose the area. Instead, it was the bats.
Speaker 1: This area of the Texas Hill Country is dotted with caves,
Speaker 1: the perfect home for millions of Mexican free tailed bats.
Speaker 1: Even today, the creatures practically black out the sunset when
Speaker 1: they emerge from their caves at dusk. You can only
Speaker 1: imagine what it must have looked like back in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty four, when there were barely any people nearby. And
Speaker 1: where there's millions of bats, there's millions of pounds of guano.
Speaker 1: Bat feces, also called guano, is a hugely valuable natural fertilizer.
Speaker 1: It kills dangerous fungui and is rich nitrogen, which crops
Speaker 1: need to thrive. So when the settlers founded a town
Speaker 1: in the center of all these caves, they were sitting
Speaker 1: on a very smelly gold mine. They began collecting guano
Speaker 1: from a nearby cave and packaging it to sell as
Speaker 1: fertilizer all throughout hill country. This business enterprise was going
Speaker 1: well until a sudden storm rolled in sometime in the
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties. While batguano is rich in nitrogen, It's also
Speaker 1: rich inflammable compounds, and decades of guano building up and
Speaker 1: decomposing in the same cave produces a heck of a
Speaker 1: lot of methane gas, so when a lightning bolt struck
Speaker 1: the cave, the whole thing went sky high. The explosion
Speaker 1: blew a hole into the mounds of guano inside the cave,
Speaker 1: and was loud and bright enough to be seen for miles.
Speaker 1: The nearby residents didn't yet have a name for their
Speaker 1: small settlement, but they did have a sense of humor,
Speaker 1: and so Blowout, Texas was born. The community built on
Speaker 1: bat guano continued to grow throughout the late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: By eighteen seventy five, it had several businesses and even
Speaker 1: opened its own post office. But Blowout didn't really blow
Speaker 1: up until eighteen ninety six. That year, a local rancher
Speaker 1: by the name of Frank Lacy was kneeling by a
Speaker 1: creek when he noticed something glimmering in the water. He
Speaker 1: reached in and retrieved a small flake of metal. When
Speaker 1: he rubbed the creek mud off of it, the shine
Speaker 1: was unmistakable. He had found gold. Miners rushed to town
Speaker 1: and began panning around the clock. With them came more
Speaker 1: settlers and more business. The town even grew big enough
Speaker 1: for its first real scandal, gaining them a mention in
Speaker 1: the Galveston Daily News. A mail carrier was caught stealing
Speaker 1: money from the town's mail and was jailed for postal tampering.
Speaker 1: But just as fast as the boom started, it sputtered
Speaker 1: to a stop. Despite all the people panning for gold
Speaker 1: or digging mine shafts, the ground was not giving up
Speaker 1: its treasures. It seemed. There wasn't any rich deposit in Blowout,
Speaker 1: just a few scattered pockets of gold flakes. As the
Speaker 1: gold rush dried up, so too did the town. By
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen, the post office closed and Blowout was taken
Speaker 1: off the postal route, and the last few residents left
Speaker 1: either in cars or in coffins, and Blowout faded into
Speaker 1: the dust of the hill country. Today, all that remains
Speaker 1: of Blowout, Texas are a few scattered markers. There are
Speaker 1: some foundations, and the post office is somehow still standing.
Speaker 1: And of course there are the bats. They were there
Speaker 1: before Blowout existed, and I'm willing to bet that they'll
Speaker 1: be there long after it completely fades from memory. Even so,
Speaker 1: It's certainly an interesting legacy that all this came from
Speaker 1: one group of settlers in eighteen fifty four who thought
Speaker 1: the sweet, sweet smell of success stink like a lot
Speaker 1: of batpoop. In January of nineteen forty five, an army
Speaker 1: plane touchdown in Kansas City, Missouri. This was not so
Speaker 1: unusual at the time. The state was home to an
Speaker 1: airfield and an army base. But this flight wasn't carrying
Speaker 1: any soldiers or prisoners. In fact, it was carrying only
Speaker 1: one man. He was the Vice President of the United States,
Speaker 1: Harry S. Truman. Although he grew up in Missouri and
Speaker 1: began his career there, this wasn't a typical social call.
Speaker 1: Once landed, he drove from the airport to his ultimate destination,
Speaker 1: a church. Inside he found a family in mourning. He
Speaker 1: greeted a few of the people there, and then made
Speaker 1: his way to the casket. Inside was a large man
Speaker 1: with a round face. Harry would have recognized his drooping
Speaker 1: jowls and big nose anywhere. It was Tom Pendergast, the
Speaker 1: man who had made him vice president back in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty two. Harry had been the struggling owner of a habdasherie.
Speaker 1: He had survived World War One being placed in command
Speaker 1: of an artillery regiment. Harry ran the regiment with precision,
Speaker 1: forcing his men to always stay alert and do everything
Speaker 1: by the book. This ensured that when they did take fire,
Speaker 1: they always made it out alive. But what had it
Speaker 1: all been for if it was Harry's fate to just
Speaker 1: return to Kansas City and not be able to earn
Speaker 1: a living. Q the arrival of his old army buddy,
Speaker 1: Mike Pendergast, who entered the store one day and offered
Speaker 1: Harry a job. You see, Mike's older brother, Tom was
Speaker 1: the boss of the local Democrat political machine. He was
Speaker 1: looking to spread his influence to the rural parts of
Speaker 1: the country and needed a candidate to run for county judge.
Speaker 1: Mike remembered how Harry conducted himself in the war and
Speaker 1: thought that he would fit the bill. This was quite
Speaker 1: the dilemma for Harry. He needed the work. He wasn't
Speaker 1: making any money at the Habitasherie and he had a
Speaker 1: wife to support. But Tom Pendergast had a reputation. He
Speaker 1: owned all the local saloons and gambling parlors, and some
Speaker 1: people said that When it came time to vote, Tom's
Speaker 1: candidates always seemed to receive more votes than there were voters,
Speaker 1: but Harry was prepared to write this off as rumor.
Speaker 1: He needed the work, and Mike always seemed like a
Speaker 1: good guy. His brother couldn't be that bad. So Harry
Speaker 1: ran for county judge that year. With Tom's money and endorsement.
Speaker 1: He won, beginning a historic political career, but right away
Speaker 1: he surprised the Pendergasts when he refused to favor them
Speaker 1: with his political power. Jackson County was in need of
Speaker 1: new roads, and the penter Gaests wanted their construction company
Speaker 1: to get the contract, but Harry believed in running everything
Speaker 1: above board. As the county judge. He awarded the road
Speaker 1: contracts to the lowest bidder, saving the taxpayers money, but
Speaker 1: this also meant that the pender Gaests barely profited. The
Speaker 1: taxpayers came to trust Harry so much that they approved
Speaker 1: several bonds that were used to support the local school
Speaker 1: district and other public projects. By nineteen thirty one, when
Speaker 1: the Great Depression was in full effect, Harry had raised
Speaker 1: enough taxpayer money to where Kansas City was able to
Speaker 1: take full advantage of President Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration funding.
Speaker 1: The WPA, as it was called, required a city to
Speaker 1: pay for the majority of any project that took federal funds. Now,
Speaker 1: you would think that Tom Pendergan Guest would be angry,
Speaker 1: but as it turns out, having a candidate who actually
Speaker 1: does a good job is just as useful as having
Speaker 1: a candidate that gives you special favors. You don't have
Speaker 1: to buy legitimate votes. By nineteen thirty four, Tom was
Speaker 1: able to get Harry elected to the United States Senate,
Speaker 1: now representing Missouri, and the pender Guests at a national level.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty four, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for
Speaker 1: president for a fourth time, the Democrat Party, including Tom
Speaker 1: pender Guest, selected Harry to be his running mate. They
Speaker 1: won the election, and Harry became Vice president. But Tom's
Speaker 1: history of running a foul of the law finally caught
Speaker 1: up with him in nineteen thirty nine when he was
Speaker 1: sentenced to fifteen months in prison for tax evasion. So
Speaker 1: you can see why in nineteen forty five, when Tom
Speaker 1: passed away, Harry's Democratic colleagues in Washington didn't want him
Speaker 1: to attend the funeral. But Harry went anyway. Even though
Speaker 1: Tom had been a criminal, he had also put Harry
Speaker 1: in a position to do a lot of good. As
Speaker 1: Harry later said at the funeral, he was always my
Speaker 1: friend and I have always been his. It's a shame
Speaker 1: that Harry's friend didn't live just a few more weeks.
Speaker 1: If he had, he would have seen the county judge
Speaker 1: from Missouri become President of the United States. But that,
Speaker 1: my friends, is another story. I hope you've enjoyed today's
Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
Speaker 1: me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I
Speaker 1: make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldolore dot com. And until
Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.