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Cardiff Giant Battles On October 16, 1869, workmen digging a well in Cardiff,
NY uncovered an amazing archaeological discovery: a giant petrified man. |
 The original Cardiff Giant, Cooperstown, New York. |
The giant turned out to be an elaborate hoax, but not before he was trotted
around the country on display. When P.T. Barnum's purchase offer was refused,
he had his own Cardiff Giant created. That's why the modern world is
gifted with more than one Cardiff Giant.
The authentic Cardiff Giant resides at the New York Historical Society's Farmer's Museum, Cooperstown, NY. P.T. Barnum's fake is propped up in the rear of Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, Farmington Hills, MI. At least, if you believe Marvin, who promotes it as such. |
 The knockoff Cardiff Giant, Farmington Hills, Michigan. |
Which to visit? From the Roadsider perspective, it's got to be the P.T. Barnum fake. It doesn't look much like the one in Cooperstown, but it is big. And a fake of a fake is ... real, isn't it? But which fake? To complicate things, Circus World in Baraboo, WI, has their own full-sized replica made from a cast of the Cooperstown original fake. And the Fort Museum and Frontier Village, Fort Dodge, Iowa, proudly exhibits a Cardiff Giant made from native gypsum stone -- claimed to be P.T. Barnum's desperate, petrified giant wannabe. |
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