3 replies to this topic

[AnnaPigeon]

CO - Joseph Lawrence Halpern, 24, Estes Park, 14 Aug 1933
Vital Statistics
•Date Of Birth: September 11, 1910
•Age at Time of Disappearance: 24 years old
•Height and Weight at Time of Disappearance: 5'8"; 165 lbs.
•Distinguishing Characteristics: White male. Brown hair; brown eyes.
•Marks, Scars: Right eye crossed with slight scar above it.
•Clothing: Light blue shirt, light brown trousers. Heavy shoes. Had an army knapsack with him.
•Fingerprints: Available


Circumstances of Disappearance
Joseph Halpern of Green Bay, Wisconsin, disappeared on August 14, 1933, while hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park near Taylor Peak.
He left his parents at their campsite, packed a few items in his knapsack, and set off on a day hike with a college friend. By mid-afternoon, the friend decided to return to the campsite saying that Joseph had headed off alone to climb to Taylor Peak.
Not knowing if Joseph was lost, injured, or had plunged to his death off a cliff, park rangers and at least 150 volunteer searchers combed the mountainous terrain for days on end.
Park authorities checked registers on Taylor and nearby peaks, but none had Joseph's signature. Officials debated bringing in bloodhounds but couldn't locate any nearby.

In 1950 Joseph's parents went to probate court and filed notice of "legal presumption of death."


In 1933, on a typical August day in Rocky Mountain National Park, 22-year-old Joseph Halpern put on a light blue shirt, light brown trousers, and heavy shoes. He left his parents at their campsite, packed a few items in his knapsack, and set off on a day hike with a college friend. By mid-afternoon, the friend decided to return to the campsite saying that Joseph had headed off alone to climb to Taylor Peak.

Joseph never returned--the astronomy graduate student appeared to have disappeared into thin air. His nephew, Roland Halpern, has taken up the search started by Joseph's father and brother, but in the past 76 years no trace of the missing hiker has ever been found.

"Four days of helpless agony and no end to it," wrote Joseph's father Solomon to the hiker's brother Bernard, who had remained at the family's home in Chicago. Not knowing if Joseph was lost, injured, or had plunged to his death off a cliff, park rangers and at least 150 volunteer searchers combed the mountainous terrain for days on end.

[karmadragon]

Joeseph Halpern was 22 at the time he disappeared. He was from Chicago, but was spending his second summer at the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin pursuing his PhD in Astronomy and working as a "Computer', a role he also filled at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland for the two years before moving on to Yerkes. The quote from Joseph's father is correct ; however, in a file maintained by the FBI since 1941 is evidence that he left the park and assumed an alias. The last reported sighting of Joseph Halpern was in 1935 when he was seen travelling with the Lewis Brothers Circus. Also in the file was a curious letter from a Ted. s. Wilson of Modale, Iowa from 1942. In it he asks if "the fingerprints" could be compared to prisoners as Joseph was hanging with a "rough bunch" in 1933. No further information is available about Wilson or how he knew about fingerprints that had been recovered by the Department of the Interior Deputy Secretary Arno Cammerer from the Post Office in Hyde Park, Illinois to the FBI in 1941 is available.

If there is any interest in a climb in his memory, please drop me a line. Until then, the search continues.

[NWA395]

I like a good mystery

[CharlesITR]

Funny sidebar, but Modale was flooded and evacuated this year, as it is right next to the Missouri River, population about 400 farmers :0