Alferd Packer, the Cannibal of Colorado, was one of the first names that I learned about when I first moved to Colorado. I went to college at the University of Denver and many of the students used Alferd Packer Day as a reason to get falling down drunk.
Born in Pennsylvania in 1842, Alferd Packer enlisted in the military when The Civil War broke out. He was discharged due to epilepsy. Alferd Packer spent the next few years working in and around mining camps in the west.
In 1873, Alferd Packer left Utah along with 20 other men all who decided to try their luck mining for gold in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. By January of 1874, Alferd Packer and the rest of his group had only made it as far as present day Delta, Colorado. They met up with a Ute Indian tribe lead by Chief Ouray. Because of the harsh winter, Alferd Packer and his group were urged by the Ute Indians to not go any further until spring. However, Gold Rush Fever ran high in some of the men and in February of 1874, Alferd Packer and five other men left Chief Ouray's camp in search of their fortune with a 10 day supply of food rations. In the spring of 1874, only one man emerged from the San Juan Mountains near Gunnison alive. That man was Alferd Packer.
After Alferd Packer met up with some of the men from his original group of 20, he said that he and his companions were trapped by a blizzard and that they survived by eating wild roses and rabbits and boiling and eating their shoes all in an effort to stay alive.
Eventually Alferd Packer conceded that some of the men in his small group died in the mountains and that the survivors were forced to eat their friends in order to survive. Months later, the bodies of those men were found at a campsite. A campsite that showed signs of a grizzly fight. Alferd Packer was charged with the murders of his companions and jailed. In a written confession, Alferd Packer stated that after leaving the camp to scout for help one day, he returned to find one of his companions cooking a man's leg over a campfire. Upon his return, Alferd Packer stated that the remaining man had attacked him and he was forced to kill him in self defense. In an amazing twist of fate, someone slipped Alferd Packer the key to his jail cell and he escaped.
Nine years later, in 1883, Alferd Packer was found living in Cheyenne, Wyoming under the alias of John Schwartze. Alferd Packer was once again arrested, tried and sentenced to death. Because of a technicality, the verdict was reversed. Alferd Packer was re-tried for murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison. In 1901, Alferd Packer was paroled and he moved to Deer Creek, Colorado where he was known by the local children as a kind man (what were those mothers thinking letting their children around this man!). Alfred Packer died in 1907 at the age of 65, and because of his status as a veteran of the Civil War, he received a military funeral.
No one but Alferd Packer really knows what happened in the winter of 1874, but the legend of Alferd Packer, the Cannibal of Colorado remains to this day.
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