Wisconsin Historians Puzzle over an 1870s Dead Horse Photograph

In Wausau, Wisconsin, people are trying to figure out the bizarre history of a photo from the 1870s that shows a man sitting on a dead horse in the middle of a deserted, dusty road.
Comments on article "Wisconsin Historians Puzzle over an 1870s Dead Horse Photograph"
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Colleen Fitzpat Dear Buzzle,

You carried an article on the Sheboygan Dead Horse Photo on 1/8/2007. This was a followup to an article published in December by Janet Ortegan at the Shegoygan Press in Sheoyga, WI.

I am an expert in analyzing old photographs (with a background as an optical scientist who has worked as a NASA contractor), and obtained a high resolution version of the picture from Beth Dibble at the Sheboygan Historical Research Center in Sheboygan Falls. Using some tricks of the trades, myself and two other colleagues were able to determine that the picture was taken September 24, 1871 at 4:30 p.m.

How did we do this?

Jan Hildebrand published a followup article we wrote for her about our work in the Sheboygan Press Sunday edition yesterday. Here is the link:

(I cannot get your site to accept this message when I include the link to the Sheboygan article in it. Please search the Shboygan Press website or contact me directly for the link.)

(You have to take the spaces out of the link because your website would not accept the info otherwise.)

We discovered so much interesting information about the picture that she is publishing the second half of the article next week.

I would like to request you do a followup article on the story. I can provide you with any information you might need, except for the location of the steam locomotive in the picture. (You'll have to read Jan's article next week if you want to know that.)

My contact information is below:

Colleen Fitzpatrick
Forensic Genealogy Photo Response Team
Author of Forensic Genealogy
Co-author of DNA & Genealogy
forensicgenealogy dot info		 4/2/2007
Horse lover Why would anyone laugh at the death of a horse?
Doesn't anyone wonder what sort of care, or lack of it, resorted in a horse collapsing and dying in the middle of a main thoroughfare?		 1/8/2007
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