History recorded plenty of incidents proving Josiah Hornsnackle, gold miner, “forty-niner”, and milliner, was weird. Not quirky. Weird.
Armed with pitchfork, shovel, dynamite, tools, supplies, and a very fine hat brush, he travelled from Connecticut to California to pan for gold.
Eschewing the huge camps occupied by hundreds of people all with the same idea, he chose a spot far further south, almost across the Mexican border. The river was deep and slow, the setting serene. But boring. So he hired a mariachi band to entertain him.
Never finding gold, he paid the band with outrageously huge hats.
