Edwin Boland of Calhoun City remembers vividly the day the “Gentle Giant” Robert Wadlow, best known as the world’s tallest person, visited the Calhoun City Square on March 13, 1940.
“When he opened the door on that black Buick and unwound himself and stood up you could hear the entire square gasp,” Boland said. “It was evident right away we were seeing a very, very unusual human being.”
Wadlow was visiting Mississippi as a spokesman for the International Shoe Company and Gene Boland’s store on the Calhoun City Square.
“The only two places we know of that Wadlow visited in Mississippi were Calhoun City and Starkville,” Boland said.
The scene on the square that day was something never seen since, Boland said.
Edwin Boland holds a display showing the outline of the size 37 shoe that Robert Wadlow wore.
“There were people as far as you could see,” he said. “They were on rooftops, in trees, anywhere they could get to get a glimpse of the world’s tallest man.”
A large truck bed was used as a stage on the square in front of Boland’s store.
Wadlow stood eight feet and 11 inches tall and weighed nearly 500 pounds. His incredible height was attributed to an overactive pituitary gland.
“At that time, there wasn’t any cure for that,” Boland said.
Among the promotions for Wadlow’s visit was a size 36AA shoe that he had outgrown. He wore a 37-1/2 at the time of his death. Gene Boland placed the shoe in his store window a month prior to his visit and filled it with pennies allowing everyone to take a guess as to how many pennies it took to fill it.
Boland said he couldn’t remember who, if anyone, won the contest, but it took 120 rolls of 50 pennies to fill the shoe.
Edwin Boland’s brother Robert, who was seven at the time, was chosen to stand with Wadlow for one of the best known pictures from the event.
“One of the things Robert remembered most was when he shook hands with Wadlow,” Boland said. “He described his hand like a pebble in big Robert’s enormous grasp.”
“Many also recall seeing Wadlow drinking a Coca-Cola. His hand covered the entire bottle. All you could see was the tiny tip sticking out the top.”
Edwin and Robert Boland stand beside the life-size statue of Robert Wadlow outside the museum in Alton, Illinois, that contains the history of his life. They made the trip a few months back more than 70 years after first meeting Wadlow on his visit to Calhoun City.
Wadlow was born Feb. 22, 1918 in Alton, Illinois weighing eight pounds and six ounces. It wasn’t until he was six months old that his parents, Addie and Harold Wadlow, noticed his unusual growth as he weighed 30 pounds, more than double most babies his age. A year later he already weighed 62 pounds.
He had already passed seven feet tall by age 13.
His growth occurred so fast he continued to lose more feeling in his lower legs and feet as the nerves were unable to keep up. By the time he reached eight feet tall he required braces on his legs to stand.
Robert’s height forced him to forego his dreams of becoming a lawyer and he began touring the country as a spokesman for International Shoe Company visiting 800 towns in 41 states.
Only two months after his visit to Calhoun City, Wadlow died at the age of 22. The cause of death was from a severe cut on one of his feet from the braces that became infected and rapidly worsened. Wadlow didn’t discover the gash until well after it had happened due to having no feeling in his lower extremities.
Seventy-three years after Wadlow’s visit to Calhoun City, Edwin, Robert and Allen Boland visited the Alton Museum of History in Illinois, just northeast of St. Louis, where the Robert Wadlow exhibit is housed.
“We were very well received by everyone in the museum,” Edwin Boland said. “They were genuinely excited to receive pictures of Wadlow’s visit to Calhoun City.”
Boland has begun speaking to groups about his experience in 1940 with Wadlow and the recent trip to Alton, Illinois.
“It’s certainly something those of us that were on the square that day will never forget,” Boland said.
A portion of the large crowd on the Calhoun City Square on March 13, 1940 that gathered to get a look at the world’s tallest man – 8’11” Robert Wadlow. He is pictured in the background of the picture standing on a flat bed truck in front of Boland’s store on the northwest corner of the square.