The Strange Demise of the Human Ostrich
James Fitzgerald, a former White Bluffs resident who earned fame by consuming knives, nails, and gold coins, has died at age 69.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
James Fitzgerald, once a resident of White Bluffs, and who became notorious after he left here by eating considerable glassware and a hardware store or two, is dead. He was 69 years old and his death occurred a short time ago in the county hospital at Prosser, of dropsical complications. Fitzgerald was a man of unique appearance, being six feet and six inches tall. He had a double set of teeth and could chew glass as easily as most people chew gum. He was operated on in Seattle a few years ago and something like 50 different articles were taken from his stomach. The list included knives, nails, pieces of glass and one ten dollar gold piece. For a time before his death, this 'human ostrich' was the star attraction at the Gibbs moving picture show in Richland.
“He had a double set of teeth and could chew glass as easily as most people chew gum.”
Long before the internet made 'human oddity' content a staple of social media, small-town papers like the Spokesman captivated readers with tales of local performers who defied biological norms. Fitzgerald's story speaks to an era where public entertainment was often built around the extreme and the bizarre, far removed from today's sterilized media landscape.
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