Between March and December 1898, two maneless male lions killed an unknown number of workers on the Uganda Railway construction site at Tsavo. The lions attacked the workers at night, pulling men from their tents. Estimates of the death toll range from 28 to 135. Construction stopped for three weeks.
Workers mutinied. Engineers demanded the lions be killed. Lt. Col.
John Henry Patterson, the chief engineer, hunted and shot both lions after months of failed attempts. The Tsavo man-eaters became one of the most famous stories in colonial Kenya. Their stuffed skins are now in the Field Museum in Chicago.