A collection of artifacts & ephemera relating to the now-defunct Mystery Flesh Pit. Written & Illustrated by Trevor Roberts
It’s here! 150+ Colorful Pages of Flesh Pit material to create and run a visceral adventure for you and your fellow squad of Park Rangers. Build out your own custom characters, select from an arsenal of questionable Anodyne-provided equipment, and encounter a robust bestiary of antediluvian macrofauna and geobiological hazards. Get it here:…
This paper map from 1976 displays the surface facilities above the Mystery Flesh Pit prior to its absorption into the National Park System.
Tourism poster for Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, 1980 From an area tourism book of the era: “While the rural areas of west Texas are known for their sparse populations, one tourist attraction seems to continually generate a steady stream of visitors around vacation seasons. The titular "Mystery Flesh Pit” has been a wellspring of fascination for geologists, biologists, sociologists, engineers…
Aq uifer Leech Chaetoderma repens These tube-like mollusks are similar to a shell-less clam or mussel. They can grow to a length of two meters and are equipped with two retractable, mucosal proboscises which branch into many thousands of microscopic tubes. These small tubes, which are able to penetrate even the densest tissues by finding microscopic fractures in its structure, sap liquid moisture…
Rare photo from early days of the pit. This gives a good idea of how small the operations were back in the early 1970s, about 3 months after the pit was “discovered”. In this aerial photo, you can see the natural entry orifice (pre-excavation), a temporary electric lift tower, as well as a utility trunk connecting the surface power and ventilation plant to the basecamp down in the pit. There’s…
Some of the most sought-after artifacts surrounding the legacy of the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park are those items directly connected to the catastrophic 2007 tragedy. Such pieces of ephemera are rare to find in a salvageable condition, owing primarily to the amount of destruction wrought by the accident. Though the now-infamous CGR investigative report has long been made public, there remain…
Park signage evolution. Following its accidental discovery, the Mystery Flesh Pit and the unique phenomena surrounding it were targets of a headfirst and furiously paced campaign of commercial exploitation. Once architects, engineers, geobiologists and clerical members of the development team had done their work to make the park safe and viable, marketing teams faced the daunting task of selling…
Wildlife Safety Brochure Though the Mystery Flesh Pit National park remained a model of visitor safety until the disaster which led to its closure, the natural hazards of the pit necessitated guests being aware of the nature of the attraction they were descending into. This brochure, combined with a mandatory 3-minute orientation film shown in the lower visitor center, was intended to act as a…
This is a tourist map of Gumption, TX from around the year 1998, meant to be a caricature of the city’s “historic” downtown area. Gumption TX, pop. 11,500 at its peak, is a small town located approx. 22 miles north of the surface orifice of the Mystery Flesh Pit. Throughout the discovery and development of the park, Gumption served as an important staging area for explorations of the pit before…
Jackson Letter #1 May 2nd 1973
Coke Heartthrob was first introduced on Valentines Day in 1985 as a limited promotion, but sold so well over the summer that Coca Cola added it to their primary beverage roster in 1986. The defining ingredient in Coke Heartthrob was, of course, amniotic ballast harvested from special glands deep within the Mystery Flesh Pit. The potent aphrodisiacal properties of amniotic ballast were diminished…
Gumption, TX
This chart, and many others like it, were produced by the Park Service as an educational tool for use in classrooms, museums and universities. Popular among natural history enthusiasts, the illustrations featured on these posters were the result of intensive expeditions and surveys into the Mystery Flesh Pit. While visitors are almost certain to encounter common fauna such as the myriad of…
Jackson Letter #2 August 24th 1973
Depending on who you talked to, James Jackson was either a con man, a genius, a degenerate gambler, a reincarnated shaman from ages past, or some combination of all four. “Jim”, as his friends and detractors called him, was a strange man. He was a self-educated thinker who was absolutely convinced that he was possessed of talents that approached the supernatural. He may have been right: in the…
This profile survey is one of many examples produced early in the development of the Mystery Flesh Pit. The “New Jackson Survey”, conducted by surveyor James “Slippin’ Jim” Jackson, combined many prior smaller surveys with new biospeleological data obtained by Jackson’s team. Notably, Jackson’s surveying expedition marked the discovery of such features as the “Fondue Village”, the “Chyme Bladder”…
The dark and constantly-shifting interior of the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park has been a formidable challenge to navigation since its discovery. Tethered explorations early in the history of the park mitigated this problem, but more comprehensive surveys eventually required a novel solution. By using a standard magnetic compass in combination with a barometer, a directional bearing and relative…