John Rogan: The Second Tallest Person Ever (And The Tallest Black American)
Public DomainThe second tallest man to ever live, John Rogan is near the top of any list of the tallest people ever.
Now that we’ve discussed the tallest person ever, the tallest man alive, and the tallest woman alive, let’s turn to some more of the tallest people in the world. Next up is John “Bud” Rogan, who — at 8 feet, 9 inches tall — is the second tallest person ever and the tallest Black American in the world.
Born in 1867 in Hendersonville, Tennessee, Rogan’s extraordinary growth started when he turned 13 due to gigantism (high levels of growth hormones). Like other people on this list, Rogan’s impressive height resulted in some uncomfortable health issues. He suffered from ankylosis as his knee bones fused together, which made it difficult to walk or stand properly.
But Rogan came up with a solution — he was pulled around by goats in his homemade wheelchair, which had been constructed from his bed.
Public DomainJohn Rogan with his goat-drawn cart in an undated photo.
Despite the easy money that might have come from joining a sideshow, Rogan steadfastly refused to join any carnivals. Instead, he earned a living “[meeting] incoming trains and [hauling] valises and packages to hotels,” according to an 1897 article from the Kansas City Journal.
Rogan was examined by a doctor named William Lackey, who wrote a paper about him. When Rogan died around age 37 in 1905, Lackey measured his body and concluded that Rogan stood 8 feet, 9 inches tall, making him — until Wadlow came into the picture — the tallest person ever recorded.
That’s not the only record that Rogan held. As Guinness World Records reported in 2023, Rogan’s hands were also enormous at 12 inches long. In fact, Rogan’s hands were even bigger than Sultan Kösen’s hands, and Kösen currently holds the record for having the “largest hands on a living person.”
