Tag: grave issues

Photos

Camp Scott

The Grave of Mister Ed

The Apache Death Cave

The Grave of Colonel Sanders

Frank Martinez's Corpse Bride

Hardyville's Coffinslide

Oklahoma's Strip-Mall Graveyard

Attractions & Other Oddities

Oklahoma's Strip-Mall Graveyard
The Apache Death Cave
Alcor
Hardyville's Coffinslide
Frank Martinez's Corpse Bride

JFK Hearse Pulls $160,000

January 23, 2012 | Monday

The 1964 Cadillac hearse that carried the body of President John F. Kennedy after his assassination, mentioned in a post last week, sold over the weekend for $160,000. (Video below.)

The hearse was made famous when it transported the body of John F. Kennedy, and his wife Jacqueline, from Parkland Memorial Hospital to Dallas Love Field, where Air Force One was parked.

The vehicle's seller previously put the vehicle up for auction in 2007 with a reserve price of $1 million, but the bid reached only $900,000 before auction's end. Of course, that still would have been $740,000 more than what it earned on Saturday.

In retrospect, that makes it an absolute steal for Saturday's winning bidder, Stephen Tebo, who says he plans to display the hearse in a yet-to-be-built car museum along with 400 other vehicles he already owns. Tebo expects to open the museum in the Boulder, Colorado, area in about 10 years. ... Continued

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Weird Oklahoma: Trip 1, Day 1

January 14, 2012 | Saturday
See video

It's been too long, I know, but I've finally gotten back around to working on the travel videos I have for so long been meaning to post.

First up: a re-edit of my first day on the road researching Weird Oklahoma. Enjoy!

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Unwrap Lee Harvey Oswald's Coffin for Christmas

December 1, 2010 | Wednesday

In 1981, President John F. Kennedy's alleged killer, Lee Harvey Oswald, was briefly exhumed for medical testing and reburied in a brand new coffin. The previous coffin, in which the infamous shooter's corpse lay for nearly 20 years, was saved and is now being put on the auction block.

The casket, a simple pine box, is being sold by the funeral home that handled Oswald's reinterment. They've apparently been in possession of the water-damaged enclosure since the accused assassin was dug up to settle a conspiracy theory that claimed a look-alike Russian agent was buried in Oswald's place.

Nate D. Sanders Auctions, the auction house in charge of the sale, reportedly expects to fetch $100,000 for the item.

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Rest Eternally in an Airstream Coffin

July 21, 2009 | Tuesday

I just had to share this handcrafted Airstream-shaped coffin currently on sale at Ebay.

Such fantasy coffins, which have become an increasingly popular tradition in the Republic of Ghana over the last 50 years, are created by only a small number of skilled craftsmen. The custom-built caskets are highly desired not only as functioning sarcophagi in and around Ghana, but also as collector's items around the world.

Some of the more unusual creations include coffins shaped like giant crabs, fish, chickens, Mercedes Benzes, outboard motors and shallots, but for me, this scaled-down 26-foot 1956 Airstream Overland takes the cake.

Incidentally, you can read more about such coffins, a collection of which are on display at Houston's National Museum of Funeral History, in Weird Texas.

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Paved Paradise: Cemeteries in Parking Lots

October 15, 2008 | Wednesday

While I was researching the "Cemetery Safari" chapter for my upcoming book Weird Oklahoma, I came across an unusual burial site west of Tulsa that was entirely enclosed within a strip-mall parking lot. Once sacred ground, it's now a conspicuous patch of grass in a sea of asphalt, a quirky spectacle to the shoppers forced to drive around it on their way to Radio Shack.

The handful of graves had become an absurd sight gag that punctuated the often indiscriminate momentum of American progress. And it got me thinking: were there others like it? Surely this wasn't the only time the deceased had stubbornly spoiled the aesthetics of a well-drafted parking lot. I mean, the good spots had already started going to the handicapped; it was only a matter of time before the dead horned in on the action, too.

And you know what? I was right. In fact, I found even more than I expected ... ... Continued

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