Stable Genius

While some people are clever, there are always those who go a bit too far. Whether at home or abroad, today's tales will entertain you.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
to the Cabinet of curiosities. As new products and services

(00:29):
try to make our lives easier, the people who purchased
them inevitably do their best to test their limits. After all,
a new solution might solve an old problem, but it
can also open up a bunch of new ones to solve.
Back in the early nineteen hundreds, rural American farmers had
a major problem that they needed to solve too. If
they wanted to ship their produce across the country, they

(00:50):
really only had two options. They could either transport it
themselves to wherever it had to go, or they could
have it shift from the nearest city with an express
mail office. The first option was a non starter because
no farmers had the means to abandon their farms and
drive their vegetables from state to state. The latter option
carried with it a high fee that ate into their profits.

(01:12):
So when the Post Office unveiled their parcel post service,
which fit the needs at a much lower price, it
was welcomed with open arms. Now farmers could shift their
goods all over the country, right from their homes in
a true farm to table fashion, and they did the
first six months of the service saw three hundred million packages.

(01:33):
Shift weight allowances also increased the more people used the service.
As customers demanded to ship heavier and larger items. The
US Post Office had no choice but to keep up.
The parcel post was a boon for box manufacturers too,
who were coming up with new designs for shipping all
manners of items, most of which was food. For example,

(01:55):
eggs were a popular item to ship. They were actually
the first thing set by parcel Post post. They left St.
Louis at twelve or five am to be delivered to
Illinois by seven pm that evening. They'd come back to St.
Louis transformed into a cake. But there's always someone who
will take things too far. W. H. Colethorpe was just
that man. A contractor who had been tasked with building

(02:17):
a bank in Vernal, Utah. His new bank would require
new bricks, and his preferred brick manufacturer was over a
hundred miles away from the building sites in Salt Lake City. Naturally,
carrying them by wagon would have um broken the bank,
so he used parcel post to do the heavy lifting.
The bricks were mailed one ton at a time in

(02:38):
a series of fifty pound packages. Postmasters in both towns
worked day and night to stem the tide of bricks
building up in their post offices. While all forty tons
of brick were successfully delivered, about six parcels in total.
Legislation was amended, limiting daily shipments to a maximum of
two hundred pounds. The Postmaster General actually wrote a letter

(03:00):
are announcing the new rule, wherein he said, it is
not the attempt of the United States Postal Service that
buildings be shipped through the mail. But as hard as
it might be believed, a building wasn't the wildest item
shift using parcel post. No, that honor was reserved for
the parents of May Piercedorf. May had expressed interest in

(03:20):
visiting her grandparents, but her folks were struggling and didn't
have the money for a train ticket. Instead, they came
up with a far cheaper and more dangerous idea. They
paid fifty three cents for postage and then attached it
to her coat. May, not even six years old, had
just made the fifty pound cut off for a single
parcel at forty eight and a half pounds. The postmaster

(03:43):
in Grangeville, Idaho, where her family lived, classified her as
a baby chick, and then she boarded the trains mail car.
She traveled roughly seventy five miles to Lewis, de Idaho,
where she was delivered safely to her grandparents doorstep by
a mail clerk. Unsurprisingly, after her parents at exercise and frugality,
regulations were changed again. People could no longer use parcel

(04:05):
post as their own private transportation service. Of course, that
didn't stop people from trying again in the future. One
man tried to save himself the cost of a plane
ticket by mailing himself from New York City to Dallas
to visit parents. Like May, he too, managed to survive
his trip. Crazier still, though, is that he tried this

(04:26):
just sixteen years ago in two thousand and three. People
will do anything for their pets, including going into dead

(04:46):
for them. That no sleeping on the couch rule it
turns out to be flexible because who can say no
to that face? Right? The animals that we bring into
our homes enrich our lives in immeasurable ways, so of course,
we want to make their lives as comfortable and enjoyable
as possible. Like many of us, Oliver hazard Perry Belmont

(05:07):
had a soft spot for the animals he owned, and
he wanted to make sure their lives were filled with
the best of the best. You see, Belmont was a
socialite and a congressman who not only came from money,
but made quite a lot of it on his own.
His father, August Belmont, is the namesake of the Triple
crowned horse race the Belmont Steaks. As you can imagine,
a love of horses ran in the Belmont blood. August

(05:31):
Son Oliver wanted a summer hideaway, nothing fancy, just a modest,
little bungalow where he could entertain small groups of friends
while he was staying in Newport, Rhode Island. When he
turned to Louis the thirteenth for inspiration, his humble summer
retreat quickly transformed into a fifty thousand square foot palace
that he called Bellcourt. The architect Richard Morris Hunt designed

(05:53):
the sixty room mansion with multiple ballrooms, a grand staircase,
and enormous stained glass windows. There was just one problem
the location. It seems that Belmont didn't like the new
money that had poured into town and how they built
their monstrous homes right along Bellevue Avenue in full view
of everyone passing by. Instead, he had his home set

(06:14):
far back from the avenue, accessible only via an entrance
along a side road. Anyone looking at Bellcourt from the
street would only see the back of the house from
a distance, as though it had turned away in disgusted.
The interior of the home displayed heavy influences of French style,
including elaborate Gothic chandeliers and a staircase that was an
exact replica of the staircase in a museum in France.

(06:37):
The walls of the master bedroom featured large murals of
noblemen going about their daily lives, and the master bathroom
featured a standing shower, the first of its kind in Newport. Interestingly,
the master bedroom and all the entertaining spaces were constructed
on the second floor. The first floor had been reserved
for Belmont's many four legged housemates. Entrances on the first floor,

(06:59):
where I had enough to accommodate carriages moving in and
out of the home. There was also a set of
eight teak paneled stables. Each one was heated by steam.
That already sounded pretty fancy for horses, but Belmont went
several steps further. All of his horses had clothes made
for morning, noon, and night. They didn't sleep in hay, either,

(07:20):
but in white linen sheets embroidered with the Belmont crest,
and the hooks on their harnesses were fashioned out of
beautiful sterling silver. Belmont's horses clearly lived as luxuriously as
he did. Richard Morris Hunt, the architect, wasn't sure about
his client's requests. After all, who had ever heard of
a home or horses took up the entire first floor.

(07:42):
And Hunt was no slouch either. He had already designed
the facade of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the
giant pedestal that the Statue of Liberty rests upon. So
it took a lot to make this man worry. But
he also knew that the decisions weren't really up to him.
It was the client's money he was spending, and his
job was to give them whatever they wanted. Bell Court

(08:03):
that included stuffing and mounting two of Belmont's prized horses
after they died, and having them placed in his drawing room.
After Oliver Belmont died in nineteen oh eaight, his unusual
mansion changed hands several times throughout its long history. It
was used as a venue for the Newport Jazz Festival,
but the years haven't always been good to it. Night

(08:25):
three thieves made off with a million dollars worth of antiques.
Much of what was stolen was eventually recovered, but several
priceless historic artifacts were lost forever. It even functioned as
a museum for a while, with only a fraction of
the rooms available to view. However, it seems like it's
been under renovation ever since Belmont died, with rooms changing

(08:45):
and transforming with each new owner. But no one before
or since has had the vision to do what Belmont
did to construct stables beneath the family living quarters just
so his prized horses could be a little closer and
a lot more comfortable. And the horses apparently didn't mind.
After all, there wasn't a single long face among them.

(09:11):
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.
The show was created by me, Aaron Manky in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television

(09:33):
show and you can learn all about it over at
the World of Lore dot com. And until next time,
stay curious, Yeah,