Old Rip, Famous Texas Horned Lizard

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. I'm happy to report that this story involved one of my very favorite headlines I have ever come across in a newspaper. Oh good, I'll point it out when we get there. This is a story that is to this jay debated in terms of its truthfulness. But what I found really fascinating was being able to examine how it was written about and perceived during the time it was happening. And it was written about a lot, because it's quite a story, so I had plenty of things to go through. This is a story that any of our listeners from Texas probably know because today we are talking about Old Rip, a much beloved legendary reptile for our animal enthusiasts and biologists in the crowd. I feel like I should apologize upfront because the write ups of the events that we're talking about today played really fast and loose with terminology, using the words frog, toad, and lizard completely interchangeably. I think I tried to correct most of the ones where we are talking to lizard, but I may have not done that everywhere, so we'll try our best. There's quoted material, there's so much quoted material that call it a frog. Yeah. I'll also say that as the sort of person who catches bees and spiders and takes them outside, I just found like the setup of this a little disturbing. Agreed. I have thoughts to share on Friday about sure animals and their treatment. Yeah. Yeah, so just brace I guess if you're also the sort of person that if you found a little reptile, we're like, oh, I'm gonna carefully take you outside. Just no human behavior not always cool. Yeah. So, so we're all on the same page about what animal we are actually talking about and what that animal actually is. While it has often been called a Texas horned toad and as we just said, also a frog, it is really a lizard. There are more than a dozen species of horned lizards in North America. They all fall under the genus Frinisoma. The Texas horned lizard is Frenisoma cornutum. Please excuse my Latin. So, yes, this is one of the lizards that can shoot blood from its eyes to ward off predators. But that is not at a tale in today's particular story. Yeah, it's actually coming out of its eyelid when it does that, but that's usually to ward off much bigger predators like coyotes that might think it's tasty. Never comes up in today's story. The horns of the horny lizard form this sort of crown on the animal's head. There are slight different variations from species to species, and in the Texas horned lizard there are two prominent horns on the skull and then smaller horns around it, and then there are these stripes of spikes which are sometimes called fringe, that run down the body. They're very cute. I see why they got called frogs or toads because they have a very rounded body compared to the sort of like linear appearance of many lizards. They're not very big animals though, they're just three and a half to five inches in length that's about eight point nine to twelve point seven centimeters. Their main diet is harvest or ants. That's actually where they get most of the not just their nutrients, but also their water. They live an average of about seven years. They're most commonly found in the mid southern areas of the us SO, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and New Mexico, and then south into northern Mexico. They also go into broomation. That's the reptile version of a mammal's hibernation. They do that from late autumn to early spring, and they kind of burrow into the ground and bury themselves for winter. The story of Eastland, Texas and its horned lizard goes like this. In eighteen ninety seven, Eastland had grown to the point where it needed to have a proper city hall built, and as part of that project, the community included a little time capsule in the cornerstone of the building while it was under construction. In that time capsule were a newspaper, some coins, a bible, other odds and ends to represent life in the town at the end of the nineteenth century. All of this sounds very normal for a time capsule, and also the pet horny toad of a boy named will Wood, so Willwood's father, Ernest Wood, recounted this story for the papers years later. Ernest was going to be involved in the laying of this cornerstone for the new building because he was a county clerk, but he was also a member of the town's band. He played coronet, which was playing at the ceremony. He is very connected to all the things going on this day, and Wood told reporters that when he left for the day to go to this event, he noticed his son Will playing with what he called a horned frog. It was this horned lizard that the boy had caught and made into a pet. And Wood believed the old saying that a Texas horned toad could live for a hundred years, and so he thought this would be a good way to prove it and a fun thing to include in this little project. So he handed this animal off to a friend who was involved with the time capsule, and that friend saw to it that the lizard, which was named Blinkie, into the cornerstone. Over the course of the next thirty years, the town grew quickly, so quickly that it outgrew that eighteen ninety seven courthouse structure. Plans were made to raise that structure to make room for a new building, and on Saturday, February eighteenth, nineteen twenty eight, the demolition was underway and the time capsule was bed. Several of the town's most prominent citizens were on hand for this event, and people knew there was a horned lizard in there somewhere. The Eastland Argus Tribune and other papers wrote about it in the days leading up to the opening of the Time Capsule. Accounts estimated that fifteen hundred people were in attendance at the opening. Yeah, and it does appear that Ernest Wood was the one who reminded everybody, hey, you remember we put that lizard in there, we should get a lot of people to see if it's still alive, because he thought it was going to be. When this cornerstone was excavated and opened, an oil man who was part of the town named Eugene Day was the one to brave, sticking his hand into the open cavity to retrieve the lizard. That lizard got handed off to County Judge Edward S. Pritchard, who held it up by its hind leg to show to the gathered crowd, and it looked dusty and still, and then, according to legend, the other leg twitched the other back leg, and the lizard is said to have exhibited signs of breathing, and then the crowd just erupted in cheers, and the days immediately after this astonishing situation, the people who had witnessed the opening of the box were asked to give statements to the press about what had happened. Ed Pritchard, the County Judge, said that quote, the frog was in the cornerstone at its opening, and the stone gave no evidence of having been opened prior to that time. Employees of the construction company that was handling the tear down of the building also corroborated that the frog was in the cornerstone, and that the cornerstone appeared to have not been touched between its original positioning in eighteen ninety seven and that day in February, a superintendent of the demolition named H. A. Park stated quote, the stone had not been tampered with. One of his employees, a man named Roy Wheatley, said that he had opened the stone with a pick himself, that it had not been opened before that moment, and that the frog, as he called it, was in the stone. A Baptist minister, Reverend fe Singleton, had been on hand for the opening of the cornerstone and was the first person to see the frog. According to accounts, he exclaimed, there's the frog. When the demolition team Pride open the cornerstone. There was also assurance in the paper that quote spectators of unimpeachable integrity declare that a frog was taken from the box on February nineteenth, nineteen twenty eight. The following article was published by the Associated Press and was picked up by newspapers around the US. Quote A horned toad sealed alive in the cornerstone of the courthouse here in Eastland, Texas thirty one years ago, was alive when the stone was removed yesterday. According to Judge Pritchard, the old courthouse is being raised. It is a West Texas tradition that a horned toad can exist century without food or water. A skeptical newspaperman had to judge verify the report that the toad was alive when taken from its long intubment. After the cornerstone was removed, the toad appeared lifeless for some time, but in a little while it opened its eyes. In about twenty minutes it began to breathe. The mouth, however, appeared to have grown together. Efforts will be made to induce the toad to take food, and if necessary, the mouth will be opened by an operation. The toad is now on exhibition. That exhibition really just meant that the specimen had been put on display in a store window. It was technically in the care of county officials, but interest in the creature was so great that placing it somewhere that people could come and look at it for themselves was probably the best possible scenario. People observed as the lizard, which the town nicknamed Old Rip in a nod to Rip dan Winkle, became more and more animated in its movement as time. Allegedly, there were offers made to buy this unique creature for significant amounts of money. On February twentieth, the Associated Press article was released that claimed, quote, more than ten thousand persons from all parts of this country yesterday viewed the frog which is on display in the window of a local drug store. Aside from being slightly emaciated in a front leg, the frog was in normal condition. This notice recounts the lizard having seemed dead when the box was open, showing quote slight signs of its breathing, and it states that it is quote about the size of the palm of a human hand. It also mentioned that the creature would be kept in confinement for as long as it lived. Eventually, Ripp's mouth did become unsealed, and after that he ate a steady diet of ants and cockroaches. If you're thinking disbelieving thoughts, you are not alone. And we will talk about the reaction to the news of this resurrected lizard in nineteen twenty eight after we return from a sponsor break. So listen. All of this old rip talk sounds unbelievable, and people thought so. In nineteen twenty eight two, an article titled Texas horned frog upsets scientists was published by the Associated Press on February twentieth. That's circulated throughout the country, and it includes a quote from doctor William M. Man, director of the National Zoological Park. Doctor Man's statement reads as follows. Quote. A horned toad, which as a matter of fact, is not a toad at all, but a variety of lizard, is a surface creature and could live only a short time without air and food. Doctor Man mentions that there are instances that the creature can go for several months without eating, presumably referring to the natural brumation cycle. But he continued his assertion that thirty one years was aposterous, stating quote, under no circumstances, however, would it be possible for a toad to retain life for thirty one years inside of an airtight cell. Two other biologists, doctor dB Castile and doctor J. T. Patterson, both from Texas, were also consulted for their take on the horned lizard situation. Neither was willing to denounce the claim completely on record, but noted that there was no other known instance of such an occurrence that would offer precedent. It definitely seems like these two did not want to reign on anyone's parade. They made it clear that they were not reptile specialists, and then they named several other experts that the papers should contact yeah biologists, but were neither of us specializes in reptiles. Doctor Raymond L. Ditmars, who was the curator of Mammals and Reptiles at the Bronx Zoo in nineteen twenty eight when all of this happened, weighed in and he deemed the story of the animals survival quote utterly impossible. Doctor Dintmar shared the same information about the species that other biologists had, mentioning that a horned lizard could go without food for three or four months, and without water, possibly as long as six months, but breathing was going to be an issue. But there were a couple of prominent animal experts who thought the story might have some validity. One was doctor William Temple Hornday. He served as the Director General, Curator and Curator of Mammals for the New York Zoological Gardens now known as the Bronx Zoo for twenty seven years, and had retired from that job two years before Eastland's miracle reptile made news. When asked about the likelihood of a reptile surviving thirty one years entombed, Horniday cited an example of another seemingly impossible animal survival story. He told a reporter quote, I was in Ceylon digging for elephant bones and tusks in sand which had been packed so hard it had almost the consistency of rock. So far as could be observed, that sand had been lying there for a thousand years, and this impermeable mass about two feet beneath the surface, we uncovered a frog which was absolutely entombed there. Fortunately, it escaped spades and pickaxes and was lifted out alive. Its stomach was full of water, which it ejected and then hopped away. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of things at which the scientists are prone to scoff. It was impossible for that frog to have entered the excavation after it had been dug. It was uncovered by a shovel in part of the soil which had not been touched. There was no fissure or burrow anywhere in that indurated mass. Doctor Hornaday's story is something we can't really verify, but it's interesting that he really broke from the herd of other animal experts to suggest that sometimes unexplainable things happened. Incidentally, he's pretty interesting and sometimes horrifying, and might be an episode himself at some point. Yeah, deeply horrifying. Another was Prentice E. Reid of Sherman, Texas. Mister Reid was a professor of biology and he was head of the Austin College Biology department, and he actually had a similar take to Hornaday, although he did not have examples of similar stories to tell. He actually said he couldn't think of any case on record like the one in Eastland, but he did think that if the conditions were right, an animal might survive. Specifically, he thought that there would need to have been a bit of moisture sealed into the cornerstone with the lizard. Less than a week after the alleged revival of the Eastland lizard, a collection of articles under the banner frog question Acute and Threatens to Become National appeared in the Wichita Falls Times paper. Is that your favorite headline Holly of all time? The headline at all of page six of the paper on February twenty six. Then about eighty percent of the text on the page is about the toad, with small subheaders that approached the topic from different angles. The first chunk of text makes it pretty clear that this entire debate is tongue in cheek. The opening paragraph reads quote information received by the Time Saturday on the horned toad question, which has arrayed brother against brother, wife against husband, and children against parents through the length and breadth of this country. Indicated that the controversy will probably be an issue in the forthcoming presidential campaign. An effort will be made to have a congressional investigation of the matter. It was learned in order that the public may have all the facts. Yeah, this is like the hot topic of the day. It's like, is the dress blue or white? It? Was the lizard really alive or was it in fact a fake? The paper then shared that due to the high profile while toad news, many readers had sent in stories of their own experiences with toads, and in some cases allegedly brought their own toads to the papers offices. We're using toads a lot here, because that is the word the paper was using. One account tells of the locals pet toad named Bull, which sounds almost almost plausible, similarly long brumation type thing, But then the reader realizes the whole thing is satire when it's reported that Bull took voice lessons at the Chicago Conservatory of Music. One of the offshoots of this entire alleged revival of old rip was the desire to entomb another Texas horned lizard in the new Courthouse. When construction began, a toad was sealed into a cornerstone of the new structure, but this time concerned citizens criticized the move and took legal action to prevent another animal being purposely sealed in a construction project. On May fourteenth, nineteen twenty eight, an article appeared in the New York Times which read quote, a group of humanely inclined citizens obtained a court order today against the ceiling of a horned toad in the corner of the New Courthouse, and the toad placed in the stone Saturday was release, none the worse for its forty eight hour and tument. Despite the debates and the doubters, almost immediately people everywhere wanted horned frogs of their own to keep his pets. People as far away as Australia ordered them from Eastland, and when Houston hosted the National Democratic Convention in June of nineteen twenty eight, so just a few months later, the most popular souvenir there was a live horned frog, which could be purchased for two dollars or fifty cents. There was an entire pop up industry of shipping these animals to buyers around the world, which depleted the local population to the point that the Department of Agriculture got involved. A bulletin was published explaining that the drop in horned lizards because they were all being shipped away, was impacting crops because the insects that they normally ate were going unchecked and then could attack plants. I'm just gonna say it's not a great idea to introduce no reptiles into different places. As this horned lizard mania grew, demands to see Old Rip did as well. Since will Wood, who was now an adult in his thirties, was still alive and Old Rip had been his pet, he once again claimed ownership over the celebrity reptile, and will took him to Dallas for a theatrical run in a venue there. This led to issues back home, though Eastland was still getting waves of tourists who had come to see Old Rip, and when he was not there but in Dallas, they were disappointed. Will Wood decided to bring the lizard back to his hometown, but the theater owners in Dallas didn't want to lose the tourism revenue either, and they sued for breach of contract. As part of this legal tangle, Old Rip was taken into custody and it cost will Wood a thousand dollars to get him back. Additionally, the city of Eastland felt that it was technically the owner of the lizard. All this happened very quickly, in the space of a week after Rip had been pulled from the cornerstone. Will Would, Eastland and Dallas appear to have worked things out. It's not entirely clear what those terms were, but once those legalities were settled, an actual tour for Rip was planned at the Saint Louis Geological Gardens. He was said to have drawn forty thousand visitors in a single day. He went to New York City, and there filmmakers made short movies of him. A bug wrangler was even hired to catch food for Rip at the rate of fifty cents per insect. You would bring those bugs to the set and they would film him eating. When Will and Rip visited Indianapolis, the local press described Rip's living quarters to readers quote a fish globe with a trifle of sand at the bottom, and gcribed the famous reptile as quote hard to interview, noting that quote horn toads or perhaps not good conversationalists by nature. The lizard gained such a level of celebrity that in May of nineteen twenty eight, President Calvin Coolidge was given a chance to see it as part of Old Rips tour. Will Wood was actually fifteen minutes late to the meeting because of a bit of confusion on his part. He first went to the office of Texas Senator Earl B. Mayfield, who had arranged the visit, instead of going directly to the White House. At the time, the toad was quote wrapped not too handsomely in a bundle of newspaper and accompanied by Senator Mayfield and other prominent Texans. When it was brought before the President, will Wood told Coolidge Old Rip's story and answered the President's questions about the lizard. According to a newspaper account, quote, mister Coolidge, though amused, limited himself to looking at the creature and touching it with his spectacles. I will confess that when I first read that quote, I thought it was one of those like plays on words, like touch with your eyes, not with your hands. But in fact, he apparently did run the edge of his spectacles along the lizard's back, but he wouldn't actually touch it with his hand. Maybe he thought that he would get warts, which is another common myth about the animals. Maybe so, after that audience with Calvin Coolidge, Will and Old Rip headed back to Eastland, and there Rip became part of Will's family for a little while. Six months later, Old Rip died on January nineteenth, nineteen twenty nine. Some modern write ups mentioned his cause of death as pneumonia. It's not clear to me where that information may have come from. Maybe some reptile expert determined that was the case. Did they do a chest X ray? I mean, animals could certainly get pneumonia, but I'm dubious that a nineteen twenty nine veterinarian would have done that because they did not do an autopsy, because they did something else. We'll talk about Old rips life after death after we hear from the sponsors that keep the show going. Even in death, Old Rip retained his celebrity status in Eastland. A small mausoleum was made for him in the new Courthouse, with a glass lids that people could peer inside. An eight inch long casket with a red velvet lining was specially made so visitors would see Old rips carefully preserved body in the most luxurious and regal state imaginable. There was also an image of Old Rip carved into the entryway of the building. When the ten year anniversary of Old Rips Unboxing approached, the story was once again in the papers, this time The Fort Worth Star Telegram recounted the entire tale and had Boyce House, the newspaperman who broke the story, originally write the update. One of the main points of the write up was that no one had ever disproven the legitimacy of the story of the lizard's thirty one year broomation. No evidence of a prank or stunt had ever been revealed, and as the paper stated, quote, if it was false, surely someone who was on the inside would have unwittingly given it the secret away. House also wrote that once the cornerstone had been opened quote, the Eastland frog became the most famous animal since the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Old Rip made headline news again in nineteen sixty one, this time it had nothing to do with the longevity debate. The reptile on display at the Eastland County Courthouse was stolen, or, perhaps more accurately, lizard nap because there was a ransom note. It was noticed that Rip was missing on Wednesday, September twenty seventh, nineteen sixty one, a search of the building was begun. Newspaper accounts don't list where the ransom note was found, merely that it was discovered and it read quote, if you want your famous frog back, get ten thousand dollars. Instructions will follow, but no ransom was paid. According to an account in the Austin American Statesman from September twenty ninth, quote, a telephone call from an unnamed person cleared up the mystery. Yesterday, however, when Sheriff LEEH. Horn was told that Old Rip was in a paper sack in Room four hundred of the Eastland National Bank Building, officers found Rip and returned him to his red casket in the courthouse. It was never discovered who took the reptile, and the article merely states, quote A lot of people think they know, but no one has been convicted. And that was not the only time that Rip was lizard napped. The next disappearance happened in April nineteen seventy two, and this one has its own layers of intrigue. Mayor HV. O'Brien, who was newly elected, asked the public for the toad napper to please return Rip. Not long after the town mascot had vanished. A search win underway, just as before, and this time someone found him pretty quickly. Where not entirely clear but soon he was back in his display case, or was he. Four years after that second disappearance, the fort Worth Star Telegram received an anonymous letter. The letter writer claimed that they had taken Rip in nineteen seventy two, and that they in fact still had him. The found version of Rip on display had four intact feet, whereas the original only had three, apparently from an interaction with politician John Connolly, who visited Eastland during his nineteen sixty two campaign for governor and picked Rip up, damaging his leg. This currently viewable Rip was, according to this letter, a fake. The letter writer shared with the Star Telegram that they had been part of a team of three hoaxters who had snuck a live lizard into the courthouse cornerstone shortly before it was publicly opened in nineteen twenty eight. They wrote to the paper quote, in recent years, I have become increasingly regretful of my actions so long ago, and so after all these years, I realized that I would have to act again to rectify the unfortunate situation for which I was partially responsible. Confronted with the fact that the city of Eastland was building its future around a dried up, horned frog, this was not the first letter from this lizard Napper. The first one had actually been sent in nineteen seventy two and Rip had vanished, and it offered a five thousand dollars reward to anyone who could prove that Rip had survived thirty one years in a cornerstone the nineteen seventy six letters, So the second letter doubled down that amount to ten thousand dollars, with the added challenge to prove that the one that had been found and was on display was the real Rip. It doesn't seem that anyone ever collected any cash, so no one rose up to those challenges, and it sort of seems like at least some people just accepted that, no, this probably was not the original rip, but they also didn't seem too chagrined about it. In a nineteen seventy seven right up in The Odessa American, the story of Rip is relayed and it ends with quote Rip later died and his body was eventually stolen from the Eastland County Courthouse and was never returned. But on September seventeenth, Old Rip Spirit will prevail at the first Annual International Old Rip Memorial. Hornytoad racing competition, Rip had become such a legend that maybe the particulars and the veracity of the story just weren't all that critical anymore. In the decades since the nineteen seventies, Old Rip has been honored in a variety of ways, and now on the first Saturday of October each year you can visit rip Fest, which has an art festival, a pageant, a parade, and even an Old Rip five k. Today, the Texas horned lizards an a state of decline in some areas. While some populations are stable, others have seen a significant drop off. The Texas horned lizard is currently classified as a threatened species in the state Oklahoma lists it as a species of special concern and a species of greatest conservation need. According to researchers working in the twenty teens, the biggest problems for the Texas horned lizards survival were our habitat destruction and invasive ant species. Yeah in particular, red ants are really moving into the territory of the ants that these lizards normally eat, and so they are losing their food sources. You can incidentally, still visit Old Riff at the Eastland Courthouse though he is probably not going anywhere. Probably one never knows. Do you have a listener mail for us? I do. This is from our listener Lucy. It is about our Human Hovel episode, and she writes, high Holly and Tracy. My name is Lucy and I live in Canberra, Australia. I'm sure I'm pronouncing that slightly differently than most Australians. It just is what it is. I write this as I'm driving home on the Hume Highway. The highway runs between Sydney and Melbourne at eight hundred eighty kilometers five hundred forty seven miles. I drive approximately six hundred kilometers of that between Canberra and Melbourne. I pulled out of a rest stop as your next episode started playing into my surprise, it's Human Hovel. I've driven this highway dozens of times throughout my life to visit family or to holiday in Melbourne. We also have a William Hovel Drive in cam Brah and I commute on it regularly. I had never heard the story of their expedition, and I always love hearing your episodes related to Australian history. I love the show and have listened to every episode just finishing the most recent episodes that I saved for this current road trip. I have attached pictures of my kiddies. Marvin and Trillion goes by Trill. Keep up the great work and I look forward to your episodes every week. Marvin and Trillion are these beautiful tabbies that are silvery looking per this thing, and I'm entranced. Fluffiness. The fluffiness of Marvin has me forever. I presume I know where those names are from. Thank you so much for this email, Lucy. We just love it and your kiddies are beautiful. If you would like to write to us, you can do so at History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. You can also find us on social media as missed in History and we are here easy pacy to subscribe to on the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you listen to your favorite shows. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.