Qualla: Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith https://qualla.com/thomas-l-smith en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:09 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/9/m/v/m/thomas-l-smith-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith https://qualla.com/thomas-l-smith Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith: Introduction https://qualla.com/thomas-l-smith/ Photo credit Arty323108, CC BY-SA 3.0. Every April, people gather in the Anza-Borrego Desert for the Pegleg Smith Liars Contest, where competitors compete to tell the most elaborate lie with a straight face. The contest is held in honor of Thomas L. Smith — Pegleg — a man whose entire later career was, by most reliable accounts, one extended performance in creative misdirection. Smith died in 1866 in San Francisco, having spent his final decades selling maps to a gold mine in the Colorado Desert that no one has ever definitively located. He sold a lot of maps. People are still looking.

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]]> Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/m/v/m/thomas-l-smith-wp/9mvm-thomas-l-pegleg-smith-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith: The Leg That Made the Name https://qualla.com/thomas-l-smith/ Photo credit Arty323108, CC BY-SA 3.0. Smith earned his nickname around 1827 when his leg was shattered — accounts vary on whether by a Native American arrow or a rifle ball — in the fur-trapping country of the Rocky Mountains. In the version that has become legend, Smith performed a field amputation on himself with m...

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]]> Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/m/v/m/thomas-l-smith-wp/9mvm-thomas-l-pegleg-smith-the-leg-that-made-the-name.mp3 0:06 2 full Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith: The Greatest Horse Thief in the Southwest https://qualla.com/thomas-l-smith/ Photo credit Arty323108, CC BY-SA 3.0. In the 1840s, Smith organized what historians have described as the largest horse theft operation in the history of the American Southwest. California missions and ranchos had accumulated enormous horse herds, and Smith's operation moved animals from California east across the de...

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]]> Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/m/v/m/thomas-l-smith-wp/9mvm-thomas-l-pegleg-smith-the-greatest-horse-thief-in-the-southwest.mp3 0:06 3 full Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith: The Lost Mine https://qualla.com/thomas-l-smith/ Photo credit Arty323108, CC BY-SA 3.0. At some point in the 1850s, Smith claimed to have stumbled upon a deposit of black gold-bearing rocks in the Colorado Desert near what is now the Anza-Borrego area. The story varied in its particulars — sometimes he had found float gold, sometimes nuggets, sometimes an outcroppin...

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]]> Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/m/v/m/thomas-l-smith-wp/9mvm-thomas-l-pegleg-smith-the-lost-mine.mp3 0:06 4 full Thomas L. "Pegleg" Smith: The Monument and the Liars https://qualla.com/thomas-l-smith/ Photo credit Arty323108, CC BY-SA 3.0. Peg Leg Smith Monument stands in the Anza-Borrego Desert as California Historical Landmark No. 452 — a pile of stones that travelers are encouraged to add to, preserving the tradition of a marker that Smith himself reportedly asked people to build on the spot where he found his g...

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]]> Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/9/m/v/m/thomas-l-smith-wp/9mvm-thomas-l-pegleg-smith-the-monument-and-the-liars.mp3 0:06 5 full