October 19, 2023 • 9 mins
Treasure is always curious. Sometimes it's hidden and needs discovered, and sometimes it's right in your desk drawer.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
They say that everything is bigger in Texas, belt buckles, stakes,
even state pride. But the lone Star state can officially
lay claim to one thing that it does bigger than
any other states in the Union, that has the most
buried treasure. And it was all thanks to one man
and his family. Off the coast of Texas in the
Gulf of Mexico is an island. It's called Padre Island,
(00:58):
the longest barrier island in the world world, stretching one
hundred and thirteen miles from end to end. It had
once belonged to several Native American tribes, including the Karankawa.
Much of their culture has been lost to time and colonization.
Today only five hundred words of their language are known,
But what we do know is that they were very
nomadic and very tall. It's believed that the Karankawa were
(01:20):
over six feet tall, with some even pushing seven feet.
They also communicated using smoke signals. Around fifteen fifty four,
a fleet of Spanish ships invaded the island. Three vessels
crashed along the island's sandy shores and left behind at
least one hundred and fifty casualties. The survivors spread rumors
about the Karankawa being cannibalistic, although it's more likely that
(01:42):
they invented that excuse when it became clear that they
would not convert to Catholicism. The last vestiges of the
tribe were wiped out in the eighteen nineties by Mexican
and Texan colonists. Now Padre Island earned its name in
the seventeen hundreds thanks to Jose Nicholas Bali. Bali was
a secular Catholic priest or Padre who owned the island
during that time. Many years later, in eighteen forty seven,
(02:05):
a man named John Singer and his wife Johanna came
to Texas to settle down. They started a shipping business,
hauling cargo on their new three masted schooner, which they
dubbed the Alice Saddle. During their first year, as entrepreneurs.
Their vessel met a similar fate as those Spanish ships
from hundreds of years before. A nasty storm shipwrecked the
Singers on Padre Island. When the reins cleared, they got
(02:27):
to work grabbing what they could from the vessel. Suddenly, though,
it dawned on them they would need shelter, so John
built a small home on the island for the family
to live in, constructing furniture out of driftwood and pieces
from the ship. Pretty soon they knew their arrangements would
no longer be temporary. They stayed put even when help
finally arrived to take them home. They loved Padre Island
(02:48):
and found it to be the perfect place for rebuilding
their lives. To go back and forth between Pidre Island
and the mainland. Though John constructed a smaller boat, he
also bought cattle and planted a garden selling vegetables to
make ends meet. Granted, Johanna's family had plenty of money already,
so they never really wanted for anything anyway. After about
four years of this, the Singers gained possession of Padre
(03:11):
Bally's ranch, which they purchased from his estate. John also
became a wreck master, meaning that he was allowed to
keep anything salvaged from any of the ships that crashed ashore,
and over the course of their lives, quite a bit
of treasure washed onto the island. In fact, one storm
in eighteen fifty four brought them untold amounts of gold, jewelry,
and other items. Sadly, their slice of paradise would not
(03:33):
be their forever home. At the start of the Civil War,
the Confederates in Texas pushed Singer, his wife, and his
seven children off of Padre Island. But before they left,
they made sure to hide their hull somewhere in a
sand dune they called Money Hill. The Singers buried roughly
eighty thousand dollars in cash, Spanish, bablloons, and jewelry. Today
that fortune would be worth about three million dollars. At
(03:56):
the end of the war, the family returned to the
island to reclaim what they had left behind. Very little
of their homestead remained. Their house had been dismantled for firewood,
and their cows had been killed for food by the
Confederate soldiers. What's more, the island itself was now a
shadow of what it had been. The terrain was all
different changed by war and weather. Money Hill was gone
(04:18):
and with it their treasure. John tried on multiple occasions
to find the missing money with his son Alexander, but
to no avail. He died in eighteen seventy seven, and
with him any chance of finding it. Others have tried
to look for the treasure today, but none have been
able to locate it. The theories vary, with some claiming
that it's at the southmostern tip, while others believe it
(04:40):
stashed in between a pair of oak trees. Legend has
it that the treasure is still out there waiting to
be found. Just grab a shovel and keep an eye
on the weather. How much is a paper clip worth?
(05:07):
It's actually a more complex question than you might think.
Value is relative, after all, and an item's worth is
determined by a number of factors. If you go on
Amazon right now, you can order one thousand paper clips
for about ten bucks. Based on that, you could say
that a paper clip is worth a penny. But what
if your paper clip was made out of sterling silver
and emblazon with the word Prada. In twenty seventeen, paper
(05:30):
clips like that were actually sold, and a single one
would have cost you about one hundred and eighty five
US dollars, which sounds like highway robbery until you learn
about a very curious story from two thousand and five.
It all began with a single red paper clip, which
belonged to a twenty six year old Canadian man named
Kyle MacDonald. While Kyle was little, he used to play
(05:51):
this game called Bigger and Better, which was basically where
you had an item and you try to trade it
for something that was well bigger and better. So that's
it exactly what he set out to do with his
red paper clip. In June of two thousand and five,
he listed the little Office supply on Craigslist and he
said that he was open to trade offers. Two women
from Vancouver saw the post and thought it was funny.
(06:12):
They searched around the house for something to swap and
soon responded to Kyle with a proposition. How would he
like to trade his paper clip for a pen shaped
like a fish? And Kyle said sure, why not? Next
thing he knew, he was the proud owner of a
quill with gills. From there, he made a deal with
a potter who lived in Seattle. Kyle sent the fish
pen to the US and received a handmade doorknob in return.
(06:36):
The trades kept piling up a doorknob for a camping stove,
the camping stove for a one hundred watt generator, a
generator for an empty beer keg and a light up
Budweiser sign. And then the most lucrative swap yet, Kyle
got in touch with a Montreal radio host who apparently
really wanted that Keg and Neon sign. In exchange, he
offered Kyle a snowmobile. In just six trades, Kyle had
(07:00):
managed to turn a paper clip into a fully operational vehicle,
and that would be impressive enough, but he didn't stop there.
His curious crusade was starting to earn him some media attention,
and a small town Canadian magazine wanted to make a trade.
They told Kyle that for the snowmobile, they would give
him an all expense pay trip to the snowy town
of Yak, British Columbia, which is just across the US
(07:21):
Canadian border. Kyle couldn't believe his luck. Obviously, he said yes,
and then he turned around and bartered that trip for
a literal moving truck. Now this is where Kyle really
went off the rails. Instead of trading the truck for
another item, he swapped it for a service, a recording
contract with a professional music producer. This included recording and
post production of a full album and a promise that
(07:44):
the finished product would be pitched to executives at Sony
and XM Radio. This was huge, and it kept getting bigger.
An aspiring singer wanted that contract desperately, and she agreed
to give Kyle a year of free rent in her
apartment in Phoenix, Arizona. But Kyle did it. I want
to live in Phoenix. So he swapped that year long
vacation for an afternoon with rock legend Alice Cooper, and
(08:06):
then he traded that once in a lifetime opportunity for
a snow globe. Okay, now would be a good time
to remind you of how we began this story. That
all value is relative, and this wasn't just any snow
globe that he had just traded for. It was a
special collectible snow globe inspired by the rock band Kiss.
And while most of us probably wouldn't care about a
(08:27):
branded glass sphere, there was someone who did. He was
a collector named Corbin Burnson. And in exchange for the
snow globe, he gave Kyle a credited speaking role in
a film being produced by a major studio. And look,
Kyle knew that this was it one more trade and
he would have exactly what he was looking for. The
Mayor and Town Council of Kipling, Saskatchewans soon reached out
(08:49):
to him with an offer. They would like to swap
him the movie role for a house on Main Street.
And this is what Kyle had wanted all along. From
the outset. He had dreamed of bartering that little red
paper clip until he got himself a place to live.
He moved in on July twelfth of two thousand and six,
about a year after his first trade. So again, what
(09:10):
is a paperclip worth a penny or a house? And
the answer to that question is a curious one indeed.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
(09:33):
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the
worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
(00:36):
They say that everything is bigger in Texas, belt buckles, stakes,
even state pride. But the lone Star state can officially
lay claim to one thing that it does bigger than
any other states in the Union, that has the most
buried treasure. And it was all thanks to one man
and his family. Off the coast of Texas in the
Gulf of Mexico is an island. It's called Padre Island,
(00:58):
the longest barrier island in the world world, stretching one
hundred and thirteen miles from end to end. It had
once belonged to several Native American tribes, including the Karankawa.
Much of their culture has been lost to time and colonization.
Today only five hundred words of their language are known,
But what we do know is that they were very
nomadic and very tall. It's believed that the Karankawa were
(01:20):
over six feet tall, with some even pushing seven feet.
They also communicated using smoke signals. Around fifteen fifty four,
a fleet of Spanish ships invaded the island. Three vessels
crashed along the island's sandy shores and left behind at
least one hundred and fifty casualties. The survivors spread rumors
about the Karankawa being cannibalistic, although it's more likely that
(01:42):
they invented that excuse when it became clear that they
would not convert to Catholicism. The last vestiges of the
tribe were wiped out in the eighteen nineties by Mexican
and Texan colonists. Now Padre Island earned its name in
the seventeen hundreds thanks to Jose Nicholas Bali. Bali was
a secular Catholic priest or Padre who owned the island
during that time. Many years later, in eighteen forty seven,
(02:05):
a man named John Singer and his wife Johanna came
to Texas to settle down. They started a shipping business,
hauling cargo on their new three masted schooner, which they
dubbed the Alice Saddle. During their first year, as entrepreneurs.
Their vessel met a similar fate as those Spanish ships
from hundreds of years before. A nasty storm shipwrecked the
Singers on Padre Island. When the reins cleared, they got
(02:27):
to work grabbing what they could from the vessel. Suddenly, though,
it dawned on them they would need shelter, so John
built a small home on the island for the family
to live in, constructing furniture out of driftwood and pieces
from the ship. Pretty soon they knew their arrangements would
no longer be temporary. They stayed put even when help
finally arrived to take them home. They loved Padre Island
(02:48):
and found it to be the perfect place for rebuilding
their lives. To go back and forth between Pidre Island
and the mainland. Though John constructed a smaller boat, he
also bought cattle and planted a garden selling vegetables to
make ends meet. Granted, Johanna's family had plenty of money already,
so they never really wanted for anything anyway. After about
four years of this, the Singers gained possession of Padre
(03:11):
Bally's ranch, which they purchased from his estate. John also
became a wreck master, meaning that he was allowed to
keep anything salvaged from any of the ships that crashed ashore,
and over the course of their lives, quite a bit
of treasure washed onto the island. In fact, one storm
in eighteen fifty four brought them untold amounts of gold, jewelry,
and other items. Sadly, their slice of paradise would not
(03:33):
be their forever home. At the start of the Civil War,
the Confederates in Texas pushed Singer, his wife, and his
seven children off of Padre Island. But before they left,
they made sure to hide their hull somewhere in a
sand dune they called Money Hill. The Singers buried roughly
eighty thousand dollars in cash, Spanish, bablloons, and jewelry. Today
that fortune would be worth about three million dollars. At
(03:56):
the end of the war, the family returned to the
island to reclaim what they had left behind. Very little
of their homestead remained. Their house had been dismantled for firewood,
and their cows had been killed for food by the
Confederate soldiers. What's more, the island itself was now a
shadow of what it had been. The terrain was all
different changed by war and weather. Money Hill was gone
(04:18):
and with it their treasure. John tried on multiple occasions
to find the missing money with his son Alexander, but
to no avail. He died in eighteen seventy seven, and
with him any chance of finding it. Others have tried
to look for the treasure today, but none have been
able to locate it. The theories vary, with some claiming
that it's at the southmostern tip, while others believe it
(04:40):
stashed in between a pair of oak trees. Legend has
it that the treasure is still out there waiting to
be found. Just grab a shovel and keep an eye
on the weather. How much is a paper clip worth?
(05:07):
It's actually a more complex question than you might think.
Value is relative, after all, and an item's worth is
determined by a number of factors. If you go on
Amazon right now, you can order one thousand paper clips
for about ten bucks. Based on that, you could say
that a paper clip is worth a penny. But what
if your paper clip was made out of sterling silver
and emblazon with the word Prada. In twenty seventeen, paper
(05:30):
clips like that were actually sold, and a single one
would have cost you about one hundred and eighty five
US dollars, which sounds like highway robbery until you learn
about a very curious story from two thousand and five.
It all began with a single red paper clip, which
belonged to a twenty six year old Canadian man named
Kyle MacDonald. While Kyle was little, he used to play
(05:51):
this game called Bigger and Better, which was basically where
you had an item and you try to trade it
for something that was well bigger and better. So that's
it exactly what he set out to do with his
red paper clip. In June of two thousand and five,
he listed the little Office supply on Craigslist and he
said that he was open to trade offers. Two women
from Vancouver saw the post and thought it was funny.
(06:12):
They searched around the house for something to swap and
soon responded to Kyle with a proposition. How would he
like to trade his paper clip for a pen shaped
like a fish? And Kyle said sure, why not? Next
thing he knew, he was the proud owner of a
quill with gills. From there, he made a deal with
a potter who lived in Seattle. Kyle sent the fish
pen to the US and received a handmade doorknob in return.
(06:36):
The trades kept piling up a doorknob for a camping stove,
the camping stove for a one hundred watt generator, a
generator for an empty beer keg and a light up
Budweiser sign. And then the most lucrative swap yet, Kyle
got in touch with a Montreal radio host who apparently
really wanted that Keg and Neon sign. In exchange, he
offered Kyle a snowmobile. In just six trades, Kyle had
(07:00):
managed to turn a paper clip into a fully operational vehicle,
and that would be impressive enough, but he didn't stop there.
His curious crusade was starting to earn him some media attention,
and a small town Canadian magazine wanted to make a trade.
They told Kyle that for the snowmobile, they would give
him an all expense pay trip to the snowy town
of Yak, British Columbia, which is just across the US
(07:21):
Canadian border. Kyle couldn't believe his luck. Obviously, he said yes,
and then he turned around and bartered that trip for
a literal moving truck. Now this is where Kyle really
went off the rails. Instead of trading the truck for
another item, he swapped it for a service, a recording
contract with a professional music producer. This included recording and
post production of a full album and a promise that
(07:44):
the finished product would be pitched to executives at Sony
and XM Radio. This was huge, and it kept getting bigger.
An aspiring singer wanted that contract desperately, and she agreed
to give Kyle a year of free rent in her
apartment in Phoenix, Arizona. But Kyle did it. I want
to live in Phoenix. So he swapped that year long
vacation for an afternoon with rock legend Alice Cooper, and
(08:06):
then he traded that once in a lifetime opportunity for
a snow globe. Okay, now would be a good time
to remind you of how we began this story. That
all value is relative, and this wasn't just any snow
globe that he had just traded for. It was a
special collectible snow globe inspired by the rock band Kiss.
And while most of us probably wouldn't care about a
(08:27):
branded glass sphere, there was someone who did. He was
a collector named Corbin Burnson. And in exchange for the
snow globe, he gave Kyle a credited speaking role in
a film being produced by a major studio. And look,
Kyle knew that this was it one more trade and
he would have exactly what he was looking for. The
Mayor and Town Council of Kipling, Saskatchewans soon reached out
(08:49):
to him with an offer. They would like to swap
him the movie role for a house on Main Street.
And this is what Kyle had wanted all along. From
the outset. He had dreamed of bartering that little red
paper clip until he got himself a place to live.
He moved in on July twelfth of two thousand and six,
about a year after his first trade. So again, what
(09:10):
is a paperclip worth a penny or a house? And
the answer to that question is a curious one indeed.
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
(09:33):
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
and you can learn all about it over at the
worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.
Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News
Host
Aaron Mahnke
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