Palisade, Nevada
Nevada
A Nevada railroad town staged fake gunfights for arriving trains, and nobody outside the town knew it was theater.
Every time a train pulled into Palisade in the early eighteen seventies, a gunfight broke out. Sometimes a bank robbery. Passengers watched from the windows as the town descended into violence, then rolled on with a story to tell.
This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
Palisade was the site of an elaborate hoax during the early 1870s, probably to boost tourism. Whenever a train arrived, the residents were said to stage rampant gunfights and bank robberies. Nobody was privy to knowledge of the hoax except the residents, and the showmanship died off after several years. In reality, crime in Palisade was low and the town did not have a sheriff.
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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