Remember when Arkansas beat Texas in an armadillo race at the state Capitol?

In July 1988, an armadillo … uh … monitor workforce handed by way of Little Rock on its solution to carry out at Dogpatch USA, then at Marble Falls. Secretary of State W.J. “Bill” McCuen consented to a stopover stunt — an Arkansas vs. Texas armadillo race at the state Capitol.

McCuen put up a nine-banded armored mammal captured in Arkansas. Dubbed “Capitol,” it squirmed a lot as he carried it down the statehouse steps — towards a racetrack product of inexperienced indoor/out of doors carpet — that he dropped it.

But Capitol nonetheless managed to out-scuttle the Texas Armadillo Association’s hero — Arnie the Armadillo — maybe due to McCuen’s crawling after Capitol whereas whistling, clapping and blowing on its tail. Capitol veered over the end line just a few snouts forward of Arnie.

Armadillo impressario Jim Schmidt, of New Braunfels, Texas, defined that his touring present was academic in addition to entertaining. As a case in level, after the race McCuen mentioned, “That’s the first live armadillo I’ve seen.”

Armadillos as soon as had been so uncommon in Arkansas that in 1959, the undeniable fact that one had died below a automobile close to Harrison occasioned a news merchandise in the Arkansas Democrat. The species was nonetheless increasing its vary north out of Texas (see arkansasonline.com/1024army), however quickly, rising in numbers virtually as shortly as the little insect-eating tanks can scurry.

In May 1988, the Arkansas Gazette took observe of this “armadillo invasion” by recounting some pure historical past: As nice swaths of land had been cleared throughout the human settlement of Texas in the nineteenth century, armadillos started shifting north from Mexico, reaching the Rio Grande Valley by 1853, San Antonio by 1880, Austin by 1914, Dallas by 1953. By the Nineteen Eighties, they ranged from the Ozarks to Florida and Georgia.

Humans cleared the land and killed the armored mammal’s predators, together with bears, bobcats, foxes and wolves. By the twentieth century, the armadillo’s solely critical enemy was the vehicle.