Did Herrick Really have a stone man buried in its backyard. Is it possible, maybe? Many fossils have been ferreted away from this area, and many a time the story ends with them in some eastern Museum just like Herrick’s Stone Man. I even think the big one dug up by Lucas ended up in the School of Mines. And I always heard of big bones being dug up in the sandpits west of Burke. Heard but never saw a picture. The Stone Man sure could have been a prank by the homesteaders in the Herrick area to drum up excitement. They once even faked a gold rush at St Elmo a town to never be by Herrick. The area did have a lot of the German Russian stone cutters in the area that could have quickly cranked out a a stone man, and from a distance or photo would be passable as the real deal. Those Eastern newspapers would have sucked it up hook line and sinker, describing the wild wild west out here. Yes, all we have now is a photo and most likely will never know the real story. But hmm. Maybe!! Next week on History’s Attic:  because we are talking about a possible prank, I will tell the story of a real prank played out one hot August day on Gregory’s Main Street.

Author Richard Papousek, May 2023