Old Rip: The Horny Toad of Eastland
Spring break one year consisted of a trip to my step-grandparents’ home in Eastland, Texas. I spent the week roaming around the neighborhood, which was within walking distance of nothing except for the biggest attraction in town: the embalmed body of Old Rip.
At some point in the 1800s, Eastland County was apparently a booming destination, probably because of its proximity to Dallas. Because it was such a rockin’ place, Eastland officials decided to build a bigger courthouse near the century’s end. As part of the dedication ceremony for the new courthouse, officials decided to place a few items in the building’s cornerstone. Those items included a Bible, some documents, and a horned lizard named Blinky caught by a four-year-old.
You know, normal stuff.
That’s right, the poor lizard was sealed into the corner, allegedly based on the idea that horned lizards could hibernate for a century.
Eastland must have been really going places, because locals decided to build a new courthouse in the 1920s. When the building was demolished, builders opened up that cornerstone to find the contents — including one (allegedly) very much alive horned lizard.
While the legend states that the story of Old Rip is very much true, cynics claim that somebody replaced the dead horny toad with a live one. At…
