Don Wildman

The fourth and final rescue comes on April 17th, where they finally remove those last survivors from the camp, and that is kind of known as the end of this ordeal, really, because they are taken to California.

So let's talk about the final outcome of all of this tragedy.

We began with 87 folks leaving, you know, from that fork in the road.

We end up with 48 survivors and 39 deaths.

That's still pretty good compared to what I would have thought, right?

They weren't killing each other to do this.

They were using the bodies of those who were deceased and using that protein, basically, right?

Yes.

This story becomes very quickly legend, right?

I mean, there's a lot of outlets that tell these kinds of stories about the West a lot back East.

And boy, they jump all over the story, don't they?

Did they publish all the accounts?

I mean, is there just a drove of stuff to read from that time, like primary source material?

Oh, no.

Oh, my God.

Yeah, he really was.

Reed and his family settle in San Jose, California after they're rescued.

They dabble in prostitution.

Along comes the gold rush.

Some of these folks were in exactly the right place at the right time, ironically, weren't they?