Little Man Mine

This place is on private property. Listing for informational purposes only. Please do not visit without express permission from the land owner. In October 1932, while digging for gold in the San Pedro mountains, Carbon County, Wyoming, two prospectors, Cecil Mayne and Frank Carr, blasted their way through some thick rock that a large vein of gold continued into. When the dust settled, they saw they had opened up a small room, approximately 4 ft tall, 4 ft wide, and about 15 ft deep. This is where they claimed that they first saw the mummy of a tiny person. Many Native American legends tell of the tiny "people eaters", a race of small men who would use poison arrows to hunt and kill men for food. Some considered them healers, others thought of them as supernatural, the way we think of leprechauns and fairies. The legends also told that these tiny people would kill their own kind, usually with a powerful blow to head, when they stopped being a productive member of society of fell critically ill. When Mayne and Carr blasted through the rock and discovered the tiny mummy sitting cross legged in the hidden cave, they knew that they had stumbled upon one of these "people eaters". The mummy was only 14" tall in length, and looked like an old man. It was so well preserved that all of it's features were intact, including a strange, jelly-like substance on the top of its head. They named the mummy Pedro, and they named their mine "Little Man Mine" in honor of their find. It wasn't long before researchers and scientists came knocking on the prospector's doors, anxious for a chance to examine the evidence of a lost race. While they were almost certain it was a hoax, extensive testing and x-rays showed that it had a fully-formed, male skeleton.. proving that it wasn't just some side show freak. Ironically, the Pedro was then sold to numerous traveling carnivals where it spent years as a side show freak. Then, in 1950, the Pedro mummy disappeared, and to this day, no one knows where he went or who took him. Some say that he was stolen by those who didn't want to know the truth.. others say that it was discovered that Pedro was simply the body of a diseased child and pulled from "freak show" circulation. Either way, the legend of Pedro and Little Man Mine continues to bemuse and befuddle fascinated people.