A Feast Along the Alferd Packer Trail
From Provo, Utah, to Denver, Colorado.
Categories: Renegade Roads
By: Johnny D. Boggs 03/01/2008
It’s a pleasant drive through this part of Colorado. Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is worth a detour, and Curecanti National Recreation Area sure looks pretty. I’ll get ahead of my story and drive on to Gunnison, where Packer sat in jail for three years, then faced a second trial for what happened down south. Gunnison is home of the Gunnison Pioneer Museum, plenty of Gothic Revival and Queen Anne homes, and Western State College. Yet there was no Gunnison when Packer and his party were in the area. There was no Lake City, neither.
Things are quiet on a crisp morning when I cruise down Highway 149 and into Lake City. The Hinsdale County Museum showcases Mr. Packer, displaying the shackles he wore in jail, buttons from his dinner attire, even a piece of skull from one member of the unfortunate party. It all happened just outside of town—remember, there was no town in 1874—at the Massacre Site, also known as Dead Man’s Gulch and Cannibal Plateau.
It’s cold up here. Lonely. And, darn it, there’s no place to eat!
Packer’s party—Shannon Wilson Bell, James Humphrey, “Butcher Frank” Miller, George “California” Noon and Israel Swan—got big-time lost, ran out of food and then got snowed in. Packer said he returned from a scout to find Bell roasting flesh. Bell, whom Packer said had gone mad, rushed him with a hatchet, and Packer killed him.
Then he ate him. And the others.
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