Solid Muldoon

There’s one born every minute, and in the late 19th century a huckster named George Hull played Colorado — and the rest of the country — for suckers. The theory of evolution was news, and Hull capitalized by creating, from ground meat, bones, blood and plaster, an 8-foot creature, the so-called “missing link” that he arranged to be “discovered” on Muldoon Hill, between Pueblo and Beulah.

The Solid Muldoon — the name came from a popular Irish song — toured the country and even Europe, but science did not take it seriously and the ruse fell apart when collaborators denied a share of the profits blew the whistle. Still, the public maintained a healthy sense of humor and, in 1984, held a reburial of the fake remains, complete with a wake.

Find the tombstone on a hill next to Colorado 78, near mile marker 16.