With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Inside the Ripley's Warehouse of Oddities [5min]

For most people, Ripley is just another synonym for strange. Since Robert Ripley published his first Ripley's Believe It or Not cartoon nearly a century ago, the company that bears his name has expanded into a major franchise. One of the company's signature attractions are its museums, which display the pieces from the Ripley collection of bizarre artifacts. Those include a mural made of postage stamps; the taxidermied head of an elephant with two trunks; and the world's most expensive limousine. While awaiting display at one of the 26 Ripley museum locations around the world, pieces sit in an Orlando, Fla., warehouse about the size of a football field. Christopher Elliott tours this way station of the weird with its keeper, Edward Meyer.
Read entire article at NPR "Weekend Edition - Saturday"