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Introducing One Strange Thing: The Jackalope · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

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Speaker 1: Hio. Today, I've got a clip from a show. I
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Speaker 1: think you're gonna love One Strange Thing. If you're looking
0:07
Speaker 1: for something that straddles the fantastic and the humorous, this
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Speaker 1: podcast is right up your alley. Twice a month, One
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Speaker 1: Strange Thing brings you some of the oddest stories from
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Speaker 1: America's regional newspaper archives. These tales all have something in common.
0:25
Speaker 1: They are entirely true and feature elements that can't be
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Speaker 1: explained by logic alone. After listening to episodes about a
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Speaker 1: house in Atlanta that bleeds, a ring that was lost
0:38
Speaker 1: on one continent and found on another, a man who
0:41
Speaker 1: was struck by lightning and regained his sight, well you'll
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Speaker 1: start to wonder about the oddities hiding in your own hometown.
0:50
Speaker 1: This is the perfect show for lovers of cryptids, haunted houses, curses,
0:55
Speaker 1: unexplained phenomenon. You know, the good stuff, the fun stuff.
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Speaker 1: So today I'm sharing a clip from their recent episode
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Speaker 1: exploring the story of the Southwest's favorite cryptid, the Jackalope.
1:09
Speaker 1: While you're listening, be sure to follow One Strange Thing
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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are released every
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Speaker 1: other Tuesday.
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Speaker 2: I'm Laura Norton, and this is one strange thing the show,
1:27
Speaker 2: where we search the nation's news archives for stories that
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Speaker 2: can't quite be explained. As we gear up for our
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Speaker 2: four year anniversary, thanks for going steady with us for
1:47
Speaker 2: so long, strangers, we're bringing you some of our most
1:51
Speaker 2: requested episode topics. The next three releases will be stories
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Speaker 2: that you all, sweetly and politely, of course, never stopped
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Speaker 2: asking us to do up. First to the plate is
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Speaker 2: one of our very favorite portmanteaus, the Jacalobe aka a
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Speaker 2: horned jack rabbit. It is truly an American monster in
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Speaker 2: that it is an absolutely grotesque mashup of things that
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Speaker 2: should very certainly not be combined, but are nonetheless incredibly appealing.
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Speaker 2: As a country, we are fond of that approach. The Turduccan,
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Speaker 2: for instance, or a taco bell that is also a
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Speaker 2: KFC we crave adventure and it is terrible and beautiful.
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Speaker 2: According to the town of Douglas, Wyoming, which is the
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Speaker 2: official home of the Jacalobe, this creature comes with a
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Speaker 2: very colorful legend. Here are just a few of its excerpts. Quote.
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Speaker 2: The Jackalobe is the result of an auspicious mating of
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Speaker 2: the jack rabbit and a now extinct pigmy deer, initially
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Speaker 2: encountered by Jack Coulter, the first known mountain man to
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Speaker 2: explore the Yellowstone region. Though their range once spread across
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Speaker 2: much of the American West, their only remaining range is
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Speaker 2: in the vast high plains surrounding Douglas. These antlered creatures
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Speaker 2: are otherwise similar in appearance to a jack rabbit, yet
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Speaker 2: capable of speeds of up to ninety miles per hour.
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Speaker 2: They only breed during lightning flashes. They are known for
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Speaker 2: their other unique characteristics, their fondness for whiskey and their
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Speaker 2: uncanny ability to mimic human sounds. This latter quality is
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Speaker 2: often demonstrated by their mimicking of the singing of cowboys
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Speaker 2: around the campfire, and has often aided them in eluding
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Speaker 2: potential captors by calling out, oh there it goes to
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Speaker 2: divert them in the wrong direction, strangers. This description goes
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Speaker 2: on for quite a while, including details regarding the milking
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Speaker 2: of a jackalope and high unting licenses which are issued
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Speaker 2: for only a few hours once a year, and a
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Speaker 2: lot of other information that we would honestly be here
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Speaker 2: all day explaining and in any case absolutely none of
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Speaker 2: this is backed up by anything, but we think you'll
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Speaker 2: agree it is a fantastic backstory. Now, despite this excellent
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Speaker 2: material provided by the Great Town of Douglas, calling the
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Speaker 2: jackalope a cryptid is perhaps pushing things more than just
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Speaker 2: a bit in that we don't think that at this
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Speaker 2: late date anyone actually believes in them. To be perfectly honest,
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Speaker 2: we believe it's fair to say that the whole thing
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Speaker 2: started as a joke, but as things do, it caught
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Speaker 2: on and became a bit more complex. With that said,
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Speaker 2: we'll toss it into the pantheon for posterity because it
4:55
Speaker 2: has become quite the tale. So if you're a true
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Speaker 2: fan of the you're probably familiar with the visual concept
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Speaker 2: of this creature. As we stated, it's a jack rabbit,
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Speaker 2: which is really a hare with horns like an antelope's,
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Speaker 2: well kind of like an antelope's, It depends on the model.
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Speaker 2: When we say horns, the definition is a wide You've
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Speaker 2: no doubt seen illustrations or even photos of alleged jackalopes.
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Speaker 2: Some versions have perfectly scaled little protrusions that would allow
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Speaker 2: their bunny owners to leap happily through the fields and
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Speaker 2: planes others would truthfully be carrying antlers so massive that
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Speaker 2: their poor heads would pop clean off. Look, we're not
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Speaker 2: trying to be morbid here, but you cannot give a
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Speaker 2: hair a pair of antlers the size of bicycle handlebars
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Speaker 2: and expect that it will bear the weight with a plum.
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Speaker 2: The fatality rate would be monumental. But that is the
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Speaker 2: beauty of the supernatural. Right, we spend disbelief, and the
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Speaker 2: jackalopes feeds off across the plains, big old horns and
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Speaker 2: all singing its cowboy song. We have to pause here
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Speaker 2: because we know that someone out there is already beginning
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Speaker 2: to write a long email full of corrections. We're using horns, antlers, jack, rabbit, hair, bunny,
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Speaker 2: and all kinds of words in this episode that you
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Speaker 2: know and your heart are not synonymous. And while you
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Speaker 2: would very much like to let us know right now
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Speaker 2: how wrong we are about that, we promise there is
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Speaker 2: good reason for it. Yes, hares and rabbits are distinctive species.
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Speaker 2: We know that American antelopes, the prong horned variety, have horns,
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Speaker 2: and that antlers belong to animals like moose and deer
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Speaker 2: and the like. Please do not press send, just listen,
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Speaker 2: we will get there. Okay, okay, moving on. The jackalope
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Speaker 2: as a concept hit the American consciousness in the early
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Speaker 2: part of the twentieth century. However, as with pretty much
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Speaker 2: every other cryptid we have covered, there are echoes of
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Speaker 2: a horned hare or a rabbit in much older myths, science,
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Speaker 2: and traditions. For instance, according to the High Country News,
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Speaker 2: medieval and Renaissance scholars across Europe wrote about varying types
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Speaker 2: of horned hairs, as did a thirteenth century Persian naturalist.
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Speaker 2: Multiple sources note that variants of the creature appeared in
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Speaker 2: an indigenous Central American legend and in Barvarian folklore, so
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Speaker 2: there is certainly some precedent for this idea. But for
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Speaker 2: the purposes of this story, we want to begin in
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Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties. Despite the brilliant backstory provided by the
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Speaker 2: Douglas Wyoming website, it seems the creature was actually born
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Speaker 2: when the young Herrick brothers burst onto the national scene
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Speaker 2: with yes, a jacalobe, or perhaps it's more accurate to
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Speaker 2: say a lot of jacalobes. So according to the Los
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Speaker 2: Angeles Times, Douglas Herrick and his brother Ralph were from Douglas, Wyoming.
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Speaker 2: We know that's a lot of Douglas's for one sentence,
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Speaker 2: but stick with us. And the boys were teaching themselves taxidermy.
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Speaker 2: Per the High Country News, They've been learning the skill
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Speaker 2: through mail order guide books, which we assume was kind
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Speaker 2: of like watching YouTube videos, but far less efficient. Anyway,
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Speaker 2: that matters because they'd been practicing the skill for some time.
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Speaker 2: One day in nineteen thirty two, the brothers went hunting.
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Speaker 2: Ralph Reckons he was ten and his brother was twelve
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Speaker 2: at the time. According to the La Times, Ralph said
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Speaker 2: that they snared a jack rabbit and they brought it
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Speaker 2: back to their makeshift taxidermy shop. In what we consider
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Speaker 2: to be disarmingly gruesome detail, Ralph recounted that quote, we
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Speaker 2: just throwed that dead jack rabbit in the shop when
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Speaker 2: we come in, and it slid on the floor right
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Speaker 2: up against a pair of deer horns we had in there.
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Speaker 2: It looked like that rabbit had horns on it. Per
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Speaker 2: The New York Times, it was then that inspiration struck Douglas.
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Speaker 2: He was said to have looked at his brother and cried,
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Speaker 2: let's mount that thing, and strangers they did. They created
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Speaker 2: a jack rabbit with horns, and somewhere along the way
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Speaker 2: christened it the jackalobe, because really, any other combination of
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Speaker 2: words just doesn't have quite the same ring, does it. So,
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Speaker 2: as we were saying the Harrick brothers mounted their creatively
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Speaker 2: morbid creation, we should add, for the sake of accuracy, that,
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Speaker 2: as Ralph told the Aberdeen American News in nineteen ninety five,
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Speaker 2: they actually used dear antlers instead of antelope hoorn's. That
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Speaker 2: was what was lying around on the table. But no
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Speaker 2: one ever let that get in the way of a
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Speaker 2: good story, and they didn't stop there. After they were finished,
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Speaker 2: they decided to move into the next natural stage of
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Speaker 2: American ingenuity. Commerce. According to the High Country News quote,
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Speaker 2: the brothers sold the now legendary first antlered bunny for
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Speaker 2: the princely sum of ten dollars to Roy Hall, who
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Speaker 2: displayed it on the wall of the bar in his
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Speaker 2: Hotel Labanti. Considering that ten dollars was the equivalent of
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Speaker 2: roughly two hundred and thirty dollars today, it was a
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Speaker 2: pretty good return for the boys, and that might have
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Speaker 2: wrapped things up, in which case we wouldn't be here today, except,
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Speaker 2: of course, that was not the end. Once that jackalope
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Speaker 2: was on display at the Labanti, it attracted notice. According
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Speaker 2: to the High Country News, it was so popular with
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Speaker 2: tourists and locals alike that the Herrick brothers began to
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Speaker 2: produce a couple more here, and a couple more there
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Speaker 2: of the taxidermy creatures, and then a few more. Eventually
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Speaker 2: they sold their mounted jacalopes all over, even out of state.
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Speaker 2: By the time Ralph, the younger brother, was an adult,
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Speaker 2: he'd turned it into a full fledged business, one that
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Speaker 2: his son would eventually join and then take over. By
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Speaker 2: the late nineteen seventies, Ralph estimated to the High Country
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Speaker 2: News that quote he had begun turning out a thousand
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Speaker 2: mounted jacalopes each year. And as you might imagine, by
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Speaker 2: that time, the Herricks were not the only ones in
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Speaker 2: the business of creating jacalobes. Supply and demand, and the
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Speaker 2: variety was pretty wide. Horns, antlers, bunnies, jack rabbits, all
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Speaker 2: varieties might appear in the mix. That's what we were
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Speaker 2: getting at earlier. But it wasn't just the taxidermy that
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Speaker 2: caught up on jacalopes as a concept, as folklore spread
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Speaker 2: right along with the popularity of the concrete novelty, and
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Speaker 2: that widespread presence created at least some level of belief,
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Speaker 2: even if it was for many tongue in cheek children
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Speaker 2: in the western and southwestern US reported growing up with
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Speaker 2: a belief in jacalopes. As Caitlin Parker of Live Wild
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Speaker 2: magazine wrote about her Wyoming childhood quote, as a kid,
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Speaker 2: I would always keep my eyes peeled for the horn
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Speaker 2: jack rabbit, wanting above all else to spot one in
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Speaker 2: its natural environment. It wasn't until I was in the
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Speaker 2: seventh grade that I was convinced that they were indeed
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Speaker 2: a mythic animal. It was hard for me to believe
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Speaker 2: because our local dairy queen had a European mount of
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Speaker 2: a jacalobe hanging in the dining area. I was both
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Speaker 2: disappointed and relieved when I discovered the truth, because I
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Speaker 2: had had had enough encounters with jack rabbits to know
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Speaker 2: that if they did in fact have antlers, they would
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Speaker 2: be a force to be reckoned with. And we can
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Speaker 2: see why she thought so. It wasn't just the horned
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Speaker 2: rabbits produced by thousands across the region. New stories of
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Speaker 2: old stories of cowboys who spotted the creatures on the
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Speaker 2: range had emerged, it was American folklore that seemed to
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Speaker 2: appear in reverse. According to the Jacalobe blog, that's because
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Speaker 2: the stores that sold jackalopes told these tales of cowboys
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Speaker 2: who heard the songs of the mighty lopes as they
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Speaker 2: rode the trails or sat around the campfire. Apparently, and
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Speaker 2: we are not kidding, jackalopes are tenors. It is great
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Speaker 2: if weird marketing. Maybe it wasn't so odd really when
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Speaker 2: there were other tales of antlered hairs in the mists
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Speaker 2: of cultures across the world. Perhaps there was just something
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Speaker 2: in the symbology of it all. And the Herrick family
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Speaker 2: was happy enough to keep making their jackalopes, though, as
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Speaker 2: Ralph's son told a blogger in nineteen ninety, they were
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Speaker 2: not pleased when large producers kept them quote out of
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Speaker 2: the big catalogs. After all, they were the originators of
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Speaker 2: the whole idea. The jackalope became so ingrained in American
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Speaker 2: culture that ernest citing reports began to come in. Now
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Speaker 2: we're not saying that's the norm. Mostly the news coverage
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Speaker 2: we turned up was tongue in cheeks stories from Douglas, Wyoming,
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Speaker 2: a town that has done an absolutely bang up job
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Speaker 2: of advertising itself. There's also the occasional April Fool's Day
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Speaker 2: article about a hunter in Virginia or Texas capturing a beast.
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Speaker 2: But we did find a few clippings in between the
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Speaker 2: jacalope milking and legend building veiled taxidermiats that actually seemed
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Speaker 2: to be legitimate. For instance, this fighting was nowhere near Wyoming,
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Speaker 2: according to the State Times Advocate. It was all the
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Speaker 2: way down in Shreveport, Louisiana, when in nineteen eighty seven
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Speaker 2: a state wildlife agent made a very bizarre report. And
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Speaker 2: yes we checked the date, it was February, not April anyway.
15:23
Speaker 2: Jim Taylor of the Wildlife and Fisheries Office claimed that
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Speaker 2: two hunters had shot quote, a rabbit with one and
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Speaker 2: a half inch horns growing out behind each year. That's
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Speaker 2: what you'd have to call it. He told reporters. They
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Speaker 2: were coming right out of the skull at the base
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Speaker 2: of the years. He said that the hunters, a married
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Speaker 2: couple by the name of Meeks, were taking the animal
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Speaker 2: quote by the state crime lab to have it examined.
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Speaker 2: And before you ask, not that we can hear you. No,
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Speaker 2: there was not a follow up article there were a
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Speaker 2: few more scattered serious articles here and there, mostly hunters
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Speaker 2: who called in nervous or bashful sightings of jack rabbits
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Speaker 2: that they swore had horns, and took some serious ribbing
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Speaker 2: from their neighbors. But really no one took them very seriously,
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Speaker 2: because well, how could they. The Herrick brothers were very
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Speaker 2: well known by them, and they'd been profiled in a
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Speaker 2: dozen or more newspapers. Douglas, Wyoming, was having a great
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Speaker 2: time with its jacalobe themed well everything, and according to
16:33
Speaker 2: how stuff works, The state legislator has even considered a
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Speaker 2: number of bills related to the creature. Most recently in
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Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, they briefly pondered making it quote the official
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Speaker 2: mythological creature of Wyoming, which is both heartwarming and perhaps
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Speaker 2: not the best use of tax dollars, but what's life
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Speaker 2: without a little joy. Ultimately, though there's no real basis
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Speaker 2: for scis something that began as a children's taxidermy project.
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Speaker 2: Right well, there wouldn't be except for one strange thing.
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Speaker 2: There are rabbits with horns kind of, and as fate
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Speaker 2: would have it, a scientist began sorting out why that
17:22
Speaker 2: was Back in nineteen thirty two, just around the time
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Speaker 2: the Herrick Brothers made their very first jacaloops. It might
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Speaker 2: just explain the odd sightings that have popped up and
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Speaker 2: why such creatures have made an appearance in myth and
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Speaker 2: in the notes of naturalists across the world. According to
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Speaker 2: the Smithsonian, rabbits and hairs can be infected by something
17:47
Speaker 2: called the Chop papollomavirus. It can cause quote tumorous to
17:51
Speaker 2: grow in various places on a rabbit's head and body.
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Speaker 2: And you guessed it. Horn like protrusions are a possibilit
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Speaker 2: specifically quote hard caratanized horns. Richard Chop was the virologist
18:07
Speaker 2: who made the discovery of the virus in the nineteen thirties.
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Speaker 2: But for the Smithsonian, scientists believe that the notations of
18:15
Speaker 2: the naturalists we mentioned earlier, like the thirteenth century Persian
18:19
Speaker 2: scholar and the European scholars of the medieval and Renaissance periods,
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Speaker 2: they were referencing the very same illness. The Standard Times
18:28
Speaker 2: claims that this disease was also described an American quote
18:32
Speaker 2: hunting and Fishing magazines in the early nineteen hundreds, which
18:37
Speaker 2: would have predated the Herrick brothers creation. Several sources we
18:41
Speaker 2: read noted that it's highly unlikely that the Herrick brothers
18:44
Speaker 2: would have known anything about that it wasn't a super
18:47
Speaker 2: common occurrence. But still, it's interesting, isn't it. There was
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Speaker 2: a whole antler bunny zeigeist in nineteen thirty two that
18:57
Speaker 2: was bigger than a couple of kids who had a
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Speaker 2: bright idea or a scientist trying to figure out why
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Speaker 2: some rabbits were covered in little carat and horns. And
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Speaker 2: maybe that's why we the big We find the jackalope
19:13
Speaker 2: so darn appealing. It's an absolute mashup of a critter,
19:18
Speaker 2: ridiculous then too big for its cryptid britches, and really,
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Speaker 2: how do you milk a jack rabbit? Honestly, we don't
19:26
Speaker 2: want to know. Douglas Wyoming can guard that secret because
19:32
Speaker 2: we'll just appreciate their lore from afar with as little
19:36
Speaker 2: skepticism as possible, because that is the best way to
19:41
Speaker 2: approach a jacalobe. If you can accept the absolute ridiculousness
19:47
Speaker 2: of the whole situation and close your eyes, well maybe
19:52
Speaker 2: you can even hear them singing, because well, apparently that
19:57
Speaker 2: is something that magic and jack rabbits can do. We
20:08
Speaker 2: hope you'll join us next time for another real life
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