The year was 1897 and the latest thing in Eastland, Texas was the startup of construction of a new courthouse. As it is and was in many of these construction startups, a hollow cornerstone was provided to serve as a time capsule. People gathered around to ceremoniously deposit little things from everyday life into it. Probably darned few of them would ever be remembered by anyone. Well, that was until electrician and coronet player E.E. Wood stepped forward to make a deposit into the time capsule. E.E. took a horned toad from his pocket and placed the little reptile into the masonary block. Now, most people had seen something they would remember; some were even highly impressed by it!

Well, even a horned toad can be forgotten, or almost, in thirty one years, but thats how long it took for Eastland to decide to build another new courthouse. When the new courthouse was completed, a date was set to tear down the old courthouse - and, oh yeah - time to open that time capsule and see just how much rust Aunt Toosie's darning needles had collected.

A crowd of three thousand people gathered around the corner of the old structure and watched. Upon opening it, they found a flat, dried, but still alive horned toad! That's right. That darned toad had survived 31 years inside a hollow masonary block with no way out! The local Native Americans had always tried to tell the White man that these little animals could surivive almost anything. Well, that day it was proven to be true. Forget about Aunt Toosie's darning needles, we got us a news story here!

In no time the press got hold of the story and E. E. Wood became the man of the hour, well second only to Old Rip, as the toad had been nicknamed. You can probably guess it was a slow news year for the newspapers. America wasn't at war and the politicians were asleep - as they should be.

Rip was an overnight success. He toured the country, far away from his home in the cornerstone of the old courthouse. In the company of strangers and in unfamiliar surroundings, he partied his little repticulus butt off! There were several reports of little horned toad ladies visiting his room almost every night. Everybody wanted to see him and be around him. His life went from one of boredom to a life of one gala event after another. He was even invited to the White House to meet President Coolidge, which he did in person - well, in toad.

But, sadly on January 19, 1929, after surviving 31 years in a hollow masonary block and 11 months as a free-wheeling, happy-go-lucky toad, Old Rip croaked! (Yeah, it was an obvious word to use, but too tempting). Old Rip was dead of pneumonia.

His dead little emaciated body was shipped back to the loving people of Eastland, where he was embalmed and placed in an open-topped sarcophagus for the world to view! To this day, he may be viewed in the lobby of the Eastland County Courthouse in Eastland, Texas.

Click arrow to watch video.