Driving through Douglas Wyoming you will find your self face to face with a legendary mythical beast…the jackelope. You see Douglas, Wyoming claims to be the birthplace of the legendary beast. A taxidermist Douglas Herrick was the first to stitch together this beast in 1939. As a tribute to this momentous event in folklore history the citizen’s of Douglas erected an 8 feet tall jackelope statue in front of the police department on Center Street. Just recently Wyoming legislatures declared the jackalop the state’s official mystical Creature. Douglas has plans though. They plan on erecting a bigger tribute to the jackelope…how big? Try an eighty-foot tall fiberglass jackalope out by a nearby interstate I-25. I wanted to find out more about the legendary jackalope so I went to Douglas, Wyoming’s official homepage…where I found an exciting summary and history of the jackalope.
“In the 1930s, the Herrick brothers — Douglas and Ralph, who studied taxidermy by mail order as teenagers — went hunting. Returning home, they tossed a rabbit into the taxidermy shop. The carcass slid right up to a pair of deer antlers, and Douglas Herrick's eyes suddenly lighted up. "Let's mount it the way it is!" he said, and a legend was born — or at least given form. Jackalope, thanks to the Herrick brothers, have taken their place in modern mythology right alongside Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster. As "proof" of the jackalopes’ presence now and in the past, they cite: Fact or fiction, legend or lark, the jackalope the Herricks stuffed and mounted gave their native Douglas, Wyo., a reason to be.
Before discovery of uranium, coal, oil and natural gas doubled the town's population to about 7,500 in the mid-1970s, Douglas specialized in selling jackalope souvenirs. The Herrick’s fed the increasing demand for the stuffed and mounted trophies. Tens of thousands have been sold.
That first jackalope was sold for $10 to Roy Ball, who installed it proudly in the town's Labonte Hotel. The mounted horned rabbit head was stolen in 1977.
The town of Douglas erected an 8-foot-tall statue of the jackalope on one of Center streets islands, which met its demise when a four wheel drive pick up tried to run it over. Proud city fathers later added a 13-foot-tall jackalope cutout on a hillside and placed jackalope images on park benches and fire trucks, among other things. Acknowledging the animal's purported propensity to attack ferociously anything that threatened it, the city also posted warning signs: "Watch out for the jackalope." The Douglas Chamber of Commerce has issued thousands of jackalope hunting licenses, despite rules specifying that the hunter cannot have an IQ higher than 72 and can hunt only between midnight and 2 a.m. each June 31. Tourist-shop clerks in Douglas told and retold tales of cowboys who remembered harmonious jackalope joining their nightly campfire songs. Visitors rarely have left Douglas without buying jackalope postcards and trinkets. The state of Wyoming trademarked the jackalope name in 1965. Twenty years later, Gov. Ed Herschler, crediting Douglas Herrick with the animal's creation, designated Wyoming the jackalopes’ official home. Mr. Herrick made only about 1,000 or so horned rabbit trophies before going on to other things. His brother kept churning out jackalopes.
Mr. Herrick grew up on a ranch near Douglas and served as a tail gunner on a B-17 during World War II. He worked as a taxidermist until 1954, when he became a welder and pipe fitter for Amoco Refinery until his retirement in 1980.
What a wonderfull and exciting history Douglas, Wyoming claims. I bet it scares the crap out of the kids of Douglas when they hear bedtimes about the innocent… yet vicious beast. Jackelopes in the street and in the beds…unclean sheets.
