The Last Laff - McCurdy's Journey
I have written before about Pacific Ocean Park in Venice. Its sister pier in Santa Monica still exists and is quite popular. Going to college in Long Beach CA, I had heard of The Pike. It was an another amusement pier that used to be in the area. It had many attractions, like the west coast sister of the famous Cyclone Racer roller coaster from Coney Island, and a midway. There was also a spook-house dark ride called "Laff in Dark".
The Pike had all the haunted house fare like ghosts that pop-out and scary decor. In 1976, “The Six Million Dollar Man” was filming an episode at The Pike and in "Laff in the Dark".
While prepping the ride for filming, a Grip went to move a mummy mannequin hanging from a noose on the ceiling. He grabbed the arm, and it fell off! When he looked at it, he noticed bone coming out. Upon closer inspection, it became apparent that it was not a prop. That hanging mummy was no dummy; it was a real mummified corpse!
Police were called, and after an investigation, it was determined that the dried out physical vessel for human consciousness dressed as a mummy and hanging from a noose had belonged to Elmer McCurdy.
He was an outlaw in Oklahoma in the early 1900’s. According to “Weird California” by Bishop - Oesterle - Marinacci, he died in a gun battle after robbing a train in 1911. A funeral home took him in, but no one claimed the body. The Undertaker decided to embalm the body to show off his skills and charge "two bits a gander" to see him. Actually, it cost a nickel which you paid directly to Elmer... by putting the coin in his mouth. (Seriously, WTF old days?)
Eventually, he sold the corpse to a circus, and over the years Elmer got passed around the carnival circuit like some sort of demented carney heirloom. Over the decades, it was lost on people that he was real body and not a prop. Somehow, some way, Elmer made it all the way to sunny California to end up hanging from a noose as a prop in a funhouse on a boardwalk in Long Beach.
This story made headlines and eventually Elmer was returned to Oklahoma and a big funeral with people from his hometown. His grave was covered by concrete to make sure he stayed put.
The Pike didn’t last much longer after that. Not because of Elmer though. The whole area had become really rundown, and after it got struck with the bane of boardwalks and a devastating fire, it never recovered and closed in 1978. What had been The Pike would become a street and what was open ocean would become Shoreline Village transforming the area so much that The Pike is mostly forgotten.
One of the great amusement piers might be forgotten completely, if not for Elmer and his crazy generation-spanning journey. Just one of the many awesome things you find when you notice history everywhere.
