11/26/2025
I have driven over 7 hours twice this year to visit this man’s grave (and the others buried near him). It’s my favorite🥺❤️
On 14 July, 1908, an emaciated vagrant died in Goldfield, Nevada, after consuming library paste found in a trash bin. The starving man discovered the paste behind the local library and ate it in an alley near an automobile garage.
While the flour-based paste likely smelled like bread, it contained fatal levels of alum. An autopsy revealed his internal organs were in a near-starvation state, and the paste killed him within hours.
The only clue to his identity was an addressed letter in his pocket. Today, his headstone in Goldfield Pioneer Cemetery reads simply: "UNKNOWN MAN DIED EATING LIBRARY PASTE."
