The Mysterious Story of the One-Legged Jewish Rope Walker
Legend has it that he fell to his death in Corsicana in 1884 with a stove strapped to his back. Until I started digging, no one knew his name.
By
Jim Yarin
Published in
D Magazine
April
2021
Illustration by Douglas Jones
A gravestone in Corsicana’s Hebrew cemetery bears only two words: “ROPE WALKER.” For 137 years, no one knew who was buried beneath it.
I first saw the stone and heard its back story 15 years ago while researching the genealogy of a Texas family buried in the cemetery. I thought it was a gross injustice to the memory of the unknown man and to his family, who probably never learned what became of their father/husband/son/brother. I also viewed it as a thoroughly worthwhile challenge to see if I could discover his name. How I solved the mystery was not nearly as sensational as the mystery itself, a legend about a grave and its mouldering contents, a story seemingly straight out of the Brothers Gri