Bat Chit Crazy Life of Thomas Cook: 52 Ancestors 2025 Prompt “Institutions”

Tumultuous Homelife Leads to Prison and a Grim Night on an Arizona Cliff

Thomas Joseph Cook: 1929-1957 (Maternal Third Cousin 2x Removed)

 

While researching Elmer Cook for my previous post, I reviewed records for his children, including his son Thomas Joseph Cook. I discovered that Thomas’ life was cut even shorter than his father’s and was equally troubled, including a stint in an institution: a prison.

Thomas was born April 24, 1929 in McLean County, Kentucky, to parents Elmer Cook and Lula Aldrige. Following his father’s murder in 1936 when Thomas was seven, Thomas’ mother was unable to keep the children together. She separated them and sent them to live with various relatives. Thomas’ sister Lottie May was sent to live with Elmer’s cousin Otis and was eventually adopted by him and his wife. The youngest child, Mary Alice, was adopted by a family named Weatherford. Thomas was sent to live with Tennie Aldrige, his grandmother. He appears in her Owensboro household in the 1940 census, although she has reported him as her nephew rather than her grandson.

Thomas apparently moved to California at some point and ended up in prison. The 1950 census finds him as an inmate at San Quentin, a state prison near San Rafael, California. I have been unable to find any news articles that explain his crime, and it is unclear how long he was institutionalized.  

1950 Census for San Quentin Prison showing Thomas Cook of Kentucky as an inmate.

He ended up in Arizona after his release, working for a guano mine on the rim of the Grand Canyon. U.S. Guano Corp. began mining bat guano from a large cave above the canyon. Guano was used for fertilizer, and erroneous estimates claimed there were hundreds of thousands of dollars of guano in the cave. A tram was built across the Grand Canyon to transport the guano, and miners were hired to dig and sweep up the guano from the cave. The mine barely operated three or four years before closing down due to unprofitability.

Historical Marker at U.S. Guano Corp. site. Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

In the wee hours of Christmas Eve 1957, Thomas somehow fell off the cliff near the tram loading area. He plunged 125 feet, landing on a ledge where fellow employees and sheriff’s department officers recovered his body.

The incident was reported in the local newspaper rather matter-of-factly, but it must have been a little murkier than the article suggested. The death certificate was not signed until January 3, ten days after Thomas’ death. The cause of death reads:

“Coroners Jury Verdict: Injuries sustained in an accidental fall off of the cliff near the upper tower at the Bat-Chit U.S. Guano Cave.”

Further down on the certificate, it notes time of death was 12:10 a.m. (after midnight) and that the death occurred “not while at work”. Thomas’ job position was listed as “mechanic” so he wasn’t one of the miners actually digging up the guano. Still, there would have been questions about why Thomas was at the cliff edge long after the workday was over, enough questions that the death was brought before a coroner’s jury to rule out foul play or even suicide.

View of cliff edge by tram area, the approximate area Thomas fell from. Photo Wikimedia Commons.

On a lighter note, I loved that the location of the death was “Bat Chit”—probably a humorous nickname for the site of a cave full of bat you-know-what. And Bat Chit Crazy sums up Thomas’ short and tragic life.

Following his death, his body was returned to Owensboro for burial, and Thomas was buried in Brushy Fork Cemetery where his grandfather George Edward “Ned” Cook is buried. Thomas’ obituary lists his mother’s address at the time of his death as Kingman, Arizona, which was the town nearest the guano mine. Perhaps he had been living with his mother after he was released from San Quentin.

 

Sources:

Photo of Guano Point Mine Ruins, Grand Canyon, AZ. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guano_Point,_Grand_Canyon,_AZ,_USA_(9536784300).jpg

“Grand Canyon Fall Fatal to Worker”. Arizona Daily Star, Tucson, Arizona. Dec. 25, 1957.

Thomas Cook Death Certificate. Ancestry.com. Arizona, U.S., Death Records, 1887-1968 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.

“Former Owensboroan Killed in Fall in Arizona”. Owensboro Messenger Inquirer. Owensboro, Kentucky. Jan. 8, 1958.