Winona Giants

The Winona Giants were alleged giant skeletons, seven or eight in total, claimed to have been excavated by A. L. Jenks from a burial mound at a depth of five or six feet in the region of Winona, Minnesota during 1860, described in a newspaper report of the Winona Republican as being of "very large size" with one femur said to measure 36 inches (91 cm.), suggesting the owner of such a thigh bone would be approximately 8 ft. 9 in. (2.67 m.) in height. Some of the remains showed signs of being violently killed: two arrows were found, one lodged into the backbone (spine) and the other into a breastbone (sternum), while a skull had a copper hatchet stuck in it. No further information has been found regarding the claim at this time.

Press Coverage

• "Discovery of Large Human Skeletons", Louisville Daily Courier (Louisville, KY): 3, 18 July 1860, https://www.newspapers.com/clip/14011293/large_human_skeletons/, "Buck, of Driesbach City, six miles north of La Crosse, sends the following account of the discovery of large human skeletons to the Winona Republican: A. L. Jenks, of this place, in prospecting in one of those mounds that are so common in this Western country, discovered at the depth of five or six feet the remains of seven or eight people of very large size. One thigh bone measured three feet in length. The under jaw was an inch wider than that of any other man in this city. He also found clam shells, pieces of ivory or bone, rings, pieces of kettles made of earth and coarse sand. There were at the neck of one of these skeletons, teeth two inches in length by one-half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter, with holes drilled in the sides, and the end polished, with a crease around it. Also an arrow, five inches long, by one and a half wide, stuck through the back, near the backbone; and one about eight inches inches long, stuck into the left breast. Also the blade of a copper hatchet, one and a half inches wide at the edge and two inches long. This hatchet was found stuck in the skull of the same skeleton. The mound is some two hundred feet above the surface of the Mississippi, and is composed of clay immediately above the remains, two feet thick; then comes a layer of black loam; then another layer of clay six inches thick, all so closely packed that it was with difficulty that it could be penetrated. There are some four or five different layers of earth above the remains. There is no such clay found elsewhere in this vicinity." 
• "Found some gigantic Human Remains", Raftsman’s Journal (Clearfield, PA): 3, 25 July 1860, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85054616/1860-07-25/ed-1/seq-3/, "Found some gigantic human remains, in Minnesota. One thigh bone measured three feet. That beats 'Lengthy' a little."