O Homo

He showed up in Tombstone in the summer of 1881, without a gun, without a name and without clothes. The bronzed visitor insisted on being called “O Homo.” Traveling through the country stark naked, he had already been arrested some 40 times prior, but no one had thrown him in jail like they had in Tombstone. While O Homo served his 30-day sentence, women wrote from as far away as California, offering to marry him. Camillus S. Fly paid him $5 for a sitting at his Fremont Street gallery; he took three photos and sold them for $1 a piece. O Homo vanished after his release. Or, did he? By October, Tombstone papers were reporting O Homo had committed suicide in Los Angeles.

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