The jackalope is a mythical animal of North American folklore described as a jackrabbit with

antelope The term antelope is used to refer to many species of even-toed ruminant that are indigenous to various regions in Africa and Eurasia. Antelope comprise a wastebasket taxon defined as any of numerous Old World grazing and browsing hoofed mammals ...

horns. The word ''jackalope'' is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordstaxidermy mounts, including the original, are made with deer

antler Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally found only on male ...

s. In the 1930s, Douglas Herrick and his brother, hunters with taxidermy skills, popularized the American jackalope by grafting deer antlers onto a jackrabbit carcass and selling the combination to a local hotel in

Douglas, Wyoming Douglas is a city in Converse County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 6,120 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Converse County and the home of the Wyoming State Fair. History Douglas was platted in 1886 when the Wyoming C ...

. Thereafter, they made and sold many similar jackalopes to a retail outlet in

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

, and another taxidermist continues to manufacture the horned rabbits in the 21st century. Stuffed and mounted, jackalopes are found in many bars and other places in the United States; stores catering to tourists sell jackalope postcards and other paraphernalia, and commercial entities in America and elsewhere have used the word ''jackalope'' or a jackalope logo as part of their marketing strategies. The jackalope has appeared in published stories, poems, television shows, video games, and a low-budget mockumentary film. The Wyoming Legislature has considered bills to make the jackalope the state's official mythological creature. The underlying legend of the jackalope, upon which the Wyoming taxidermists were building, may be related to similar stories in other cultures and other historical times. Researchers suggest that at least some of the tales of horned hares were inspired by sightings of rabbits infected with the '' Shope papilloma virus''. It causes horn- and antler-like

tumor A neoplasm () is a type of abnormal and excessive growth of tissue. The process that occurs to form or produce a neoplasm is called neoplasia. The growth of a neoplasm is uncoordinated with that of the normal surrounding tissue, and persists ...

s to grow in various places on a rabbit's head and body. Folklorists see the jackalope as one of a group of tall tale animals, known as fearsome critters, common to North American culture since the turn of the twentieth century. These fabulous beasts appear in

tall tale A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it n ...

s featuring

hodag In American folklore, the hodag is a fearsome critter resembling a large bull-horned carnivore with a row of thick curved spines down its back. The hodag was said to be born from the ashes of cremated oxen, as the incarnation of the accumulati ...

s, giant snakes,

fur-bearing trout The fur-bearing trout (or furry trout) is a legendary creature purportedly found in American folklore and Icelandic folklore. According to folklore, the trout has created a thick coat of fur to maintain its body heat. Tales of furry fish date ...

, and many others. Some such stories lend themselves to comic hoaxing by entrepreneurs who seek attention for their own personal or their region's fortune.

Name

''Jackalope'' is a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsJackrabbits are actually hares rather than

rabbits Rabbits, also known as bunnies or bunny rabbits, are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also contains the hares) of the order Lagomorpha (which also contains the pikas). ''Oryctolagus cuniculus'' includes the European rabbit specie ...

though both are

mammal Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...

s in the family Leporidae. Wyoming is home to three species of hares, all in the genus '' Lepus''. These are the

black-tailed jackrabbit The black-tailed jackrabbit (''Lepus californicus''), also known as the American desert hare, is a common hare of the western United States and Mexico, where it is found at elevations from sea level up to . Reaching a length around , and a ...

, the

white-tailed jackrabbit The white-tailed jackrabbit (''Lepus townsendii''), also known as the prairie hare and the white jack, is a species of hare found in western North America. Like all hares and rabbits, it is a member of the family Leporidae of order Lagomorpha ...

, and the snowshoe hare. The antelope is actually a pronghorn (''Antilocapra americana'') rather than an

and are more closely related to giraffes, although one of its colloquial names in North America is "antelope". Some of the largest herds of wild pronghorns, which are found only in western North America, are in Wyoming. The adults grow to about tall, weigh up to , and can run at sustained speeds approaching .

Origins

Animalia Qvadrvpedia et Reptilia (Terra) Plate XLVII

Stories or descriptions of animal hybrids have appeared in many cultures worldwide. A 13th-century

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

work depicts a rabbit with a single horn, like a

unicorn The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has for the last thousand years o ...

. In Europe, the horned rabbit appeared in

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

and

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

folklore in

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

(the wolpertinger) and elsewhere. Natural history texts such as ''Historiae Naturalis de Quadrupetibus Libri'' (''The History Book of Natural Quadrangles'') by Joannes Jonstonus (John Jonston) in the 17th century and illustrations such as ''Animalia Qvadrvpedia et Reptilia (Terra): Plate XLVII'' by Joris Hoefnagel (1522–1600) in the 16th century included the horned hare. These early scientific texts described and illustrated the hybrids as though they were real creatures, but by the end of the 18th century scientists generally rejected the idea of horned hares as a biological species. Rabbit shopes papilloma virus 3

References to horned rabbits may originate in sightings of rabbits affected by the Shope papilloma virus, named for Richard E. Shope, M.D., who described it in a scientific journal in 1933. Shope initially examined wild

cottontail rabbit Cottontail rabbits are the leporid species in the genus ''Sylvilagus'', found in the Americas. Most ''Sylvilagus'' species have stub tails with white undersides that show when they retreat, giving them their characteristic name. However, this ...

s that had been shot by hunters in

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

and later examined wild rabbits from

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

. They had "numerous horn-like protuberances on the skin over various parts of their bodies. The animals were referred to popularly as 'horned' or 'warty' rabbits." Legends about horned rabbits also occur in Asia and Africa as well as Europe, and researchers suspect the changes induced by the virus might underlie at least some of those tales. In

Central America Central America ( es, América Central or ) is a subregion of the Americas. Its boundaries are defined as bordering the United States to the north, Colombia to the south, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. ...

, mythological references to a horned rabbit creature can be found in

Huichol The Huichol or Wixárika are an indigenous people of Mexico and the United States living in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango, as well as in the United States in the states of California, ...

legends. The Huichol oral tradition has passed down tales of a horned rabbit and of the deer getting horns from the rabbit. The rabbit and deer were paired, though not combined as a hybrid, as day signs in the calendar of the Mesoamerican period of the

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those g ...

s, as twins, brothers, even the sun and moon.

Douglas variant

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' attributes the American jackalope's origin to a 1932 hunting outing involving Douglas Herrick (1920–2003) of

. Herrick and his brother had studied taxidermy by mail order as teenagers, and when the brothers returned from a hunting trip for jackrabbits, Herrick tossed a carcass into the taxidermy store, where it came to rest beside a pair of deer antlers. The accidental combination of animal forms sparked Herrick's idea for a jackalope. The first jackalope the brothers put together was sold for $10 to Roy Ball, who displayed it in Douglas' La Bonte Hotel. The mounted head was stolen in 1977. The jackalope became a popular local attraction in Douglas, where the Chamber of Commerce issues Jackalope Hunting Licenses to tourists. The tags are good for hunting during official jackalope season, which occurs for only one day: June 31 (a nonexistent date as June has 30 days), from midnight to 2 a.m. The hunter must have an IQ greater than 50 but not over 72. Thousands of "licenses" have been issued. In Herrick's home town of Douglas, there is an statue of a jackalope, and the town hosts an annual Jackalope Days Celebration in early June. Building on the Herrick's success, Frank English of

Rapid City, South Dakota Rapid City ( lkt, link=no, Mni Lúzahaŋ Otȟúŋwahe; "Swift Water City") is the second most populous city in South Dakota and the county seat of Pennington County. Named after Rapid Creek, where the settlement developed, it is in western So ...

has made and sold many thousands of jackalopes since retiring from the

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an a ...

in 1981. He is the only supplier of the altered animal heads to Cabela's, a major outdoor-theme retail company. His standard jackalopes and "world-record" jackalopes sell for about $150. In ''Man and Beast in American Comic Legend'', folklorist Richard Dorson recounts the Douglas variant but also an alternative that will "surely infuriate the residents of Douglas...". According to Dorson, in ''Mythical Creatures of the North Country'' (1969), historian Walker D. Wyman acknowledged the existence of what he called the Alkali Area Jackalope of the western United States. However, he expressed doubt that it predated the Jack-pine Jackalope of

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

and

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, "a mythological throwback that defies even the most competent biologists of the region." Wyman claimed there were three known specimens of this primary jackalope—in Augusta in west-central Wisconsin; Cornucopia, along the south shore of

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

; and in a north shore museum and lumber camp— all "presumably shot by careless hunters during the deer season." In a 1978 revision and expansion of his book, which includes material on the rubberado porcupine, the snoligoster, the three-tailed bavalorus, the

squonk The squonk is a mythical creature that is reputed to live in the hemlock forests of northern Pennsylvania in the United States. Origins Although the earliest written account of the squonk was from the 1910 book '' Fearsome Creatures of the Lumb ...

, and many other creatures, Wyman devotes four pages to the jackalope. In a turnabout from his earlier claims of a North Country origin for the antlered hare, he says, "The center of its vast range seems to be Wyoming." Evidence of wide dispersal of ''Lepus antilocapra wyomingensis'' from its original range, he claims, are labels such as "Tioga, Pennsylvania," and "Hongkong" stamped on mounted jackalope heads in barrooms across the United States.

Tall tales

The jackalope is subject to many outlandish and largely

tongue-in-cheek The idiom tongue-in-cheek refers to a humorous or sarcastic statement expressed in a serious manner. History The phrase originally expressed contempt, but by 1842 had acquired its modern meaning. Early users of the phrase include Sir Walter Scott ...

claims embedded in

tall tales A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it n ...

about its habits. Jackalopes are said to be so dangerous that hunters are advised to wear stovepipes on their legs to keep from being gored. Stores in Douglas sell jackalope milk, but ''The New York Times'' questions its authenticity on grounds that milking a jackalope is known to be fraught with risk. One of the ways to catch a jackalope is to entice it with whiskey, the jackalope's beverage of choice. The jackalope can imitate the human voice, according to legend. During the days of the Old West, when cowboys gathered by the campfires singing at night, jackalopes could be heard mimicking their voices or singing along, usually as a

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

. It is said that jackalopes, the rare ''Lepus antilocapra'', only breed during lightning flashes and that their antlers make the act difficult despite the hare's reputation for fertility.

Official recognition

In 2005, the legislature of Wyoming considered a bill to make the jackalope the state's official mythological creature. It passed the

House A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air condi ...

by a 45–12 margin, but the session ended before the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

could take up the bill, which died. In 2013, following the death of the bill's sponsor, Dave Edwards, the state legislature reintroduced the bill. It again passed the House but died in the rules committee of the Senate. In 2015, three state representatives put forth the jackalope proposal again, this time as House Bill 66, and again it passed the House but died in a Senate committee. One of the co-sponsors, Dan Zwonitzer, said, "I’ll keep bringing it back until it passes." In 2014, the

Wyoming Lottery The Wyoming Lottery Corporation, branded as WyoLotto, is a lottery based in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Cheyenne, Wyoming that began its operations on July 1, 2013. The Wyoming Lottery Corporation is governed by a nine-member board of directors, with each ...

adopted a jackalope logo for its lottery tickets and marketing materials. Lottery officials chose the fictitious animal, which they named ''YoLo'', over the bucking horse and other state symbols.

In popular culture

Since Herrick and his brother began selling manipulated taxidermy heads in the 1930s, such trophies, as well as jackalope postcards and related gift-shop items, can be found in many places beyond Douglas. The student magazine of the

Santa Fe University of Art and Design Santa Fe University of Art and Design (SFUAD) was a private, for-profit art school in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The university was built from the non-profit College of Santa Fe (CSF), a Catholic facility founded as St. Michael's College in 1859, and ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

is called ''The Jackalope''. On the other side of the world, The Hop Factory craft beer cafe in Newcastle,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, uses a leaping jackalope as its logo. In 1986,

James Abdnor Ellis James Abdnor (February 13, 1923 – May 16, 2012) was an American politician who served as a member of the United States Senate from South Dakota. He was also the 15th Administrator of the Small Business Administration under presidents Rona ...

, a senator from South Dakota, gave U.S. President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...

a stuffed jackalope (rabbit head with antlers) during a presidential campaign stop in Rapid City. Many books, including a large number written for children, feature the jackalope. A search for "jackalope" in the

WorldCat WorldCat is a union catalog that itemizes the collections of tens of thousands of institutions (mostly libraries), in many countries, that are current or past members of the OCLC global cooperative. It is operated by OCLC, Inc. Many of the OCL ...

listings of early 2015 produced 225 hits, including 57 for books. Among them is ''Juan and the Jackalope: A Children's Book in Verse'' by

Rudolfo Anaya Rudolfo Anaya (October 30, 1937June 28, 2020) was an American author. Noted for his 1972 novel ''Bless Me, Ultima'', Anaya was considered one of the founders of the canon of contemporary Chicano literature. The themes and cultural references of ...

. The WorldCat summary of Anaya's book says: "Competing for the hand of the lovely Rosita and her rhubarb pie, Juan rides a Jackalope in a race against Pecos Bill." A short story, "Jackalope Wives" by Ursula Vernon, has been nominated for a 2014

Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of profe ...

. Musicians have used the jackalope in various ways.

R. Carlos Nakai Raymond Carlos Nakai (born April 16, 1946) is a Native American flute, Native American flutist of Navajo people, Navajo and Ute people, Ute heritage. Nakai played brass instruments in high school and college, and auditioned for the Armed Forces ...

, a Native American

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

player, formerly belonged to a group called Jackalope. In the late 1980s, it performed what Nakai called "synthacousticpunkarachiNavajazz", which combined "improvisation, visual art, storytelling, dance and dramatic theatrical effects." Nakai said he wanted people to dream as they listened to the music.

Jakalope Jakalope is a Canadian Indie pop/rock group, formed in 2003 and named for the mythical creature of the jackalope, and started by noted Canadian industrial musician and producer Dave "Rave" Ogilvie, most famous for his studio work with such acts a ...

is a Canadian alternative pop/rock group formed in 2003 by

Dave "Rave" Ogilvie Dave "Rave" Ogilvie is a Canadian record producer, mixer, songwriter and musician. The former member of bands Skinny Puppy and Jakalope started his recording career in Vancouver working as an engineer at Mushroom Studios. He has been described by ...

. The band

Miike Snow Miike Snow (pronounced "Mike Snow") is a Swedish indie pop band formed in 2007. The band consists of producing team Bloodshy & Avant and American singer Andrew Wyatt. The band is often represented by a silhouette image of a jackalope. In their ca ...

uses the jackalope as its logo. Band member Andrew Wyatt said during an interview in 2012 that the logo was meant to signify experiment and adventure. Of the 225 Worldcat hits resulting from a search for "jackalope", 95 were related to music. Jackalopes have appeared in movies and on television. In the 1990s, a jackalope named "Jack Ching Bada Bing" was a recurring character in a series of sketches on the television shows '' America's Funniest Home Videos'' and '' America's Funniest People''. The show's host,

Dave Coulier David Alan Coulier ( ; born September 21, 1959) is an American actor, stand-up comedian, impressionist, and television host. He played Joey Gladstone on the ABC sitcom ''Full House'', voiced Peter Venkman on ''The Real Ghostbusters'', and voiced ...

, voiced the rascally hybrid. In 2003, Pixar featured a jackalope in the short animation '' Boundin'''. The jackalope gave helpful advice to a lamb who was feeling sad after being shorn. Jackalopes have appeared in video games. In '' Red Dead Redemption'', the player is able to hunt and skin jackalopes. In ''

Redneck Rampage ''Redneck Rampage'' is a 1997 first-person shooter game developed by Xatrix Entertainment and published by Interplay Entertainment, Interplay. The game is a first-person shooter with a variety of weapons and levels, and has a hillbilly theme, pr ...

'', jackalopes, including one the size of a bus, are enemies. Jackalopes are part of the action in '' Guild Wars 2''. A low-budget jackalope mockumentary, ''Stagbunny'', aired in Casper and Douglas in 2006. The movie included interviews with the owner of a Douglas sporting goods store who claimed to harbor a live jackalope on his premises and with a

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

who explained the natural history of the jackalope and its place in the

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

record. Beginning in 1997, the

Central Hockey League The Central Hockey League (CHL) was a North American mid-level minor professional ice hockey league which operated from 1992 until 2014. It was founded by Ray Miron and Bill Levins and later sold to Global Entertainment Corporation, which opera ...

included a team called the

Odessa Jackalopes The Odessa Jackalopes are a Tier II junior ice hockey team playing in the North American Hockey League (NAHL). The team is based in Odessa, Texas and plays their home games at Ector County Coliseum. History The franchise first played as the ...

. The team joined the

South Division South Division may refer to: * South Division (AFL), a division of the Arena Football League * South Division (CFL), a former division of the Canadian Football League * South Division (NAHL), a division of the North American Hockey League * South ...

of the

North American Hockey League The North American Hockey League (NAHL) is one of the top junior hockey leagues in the United States and is in its 48th season of operation in 2022–23. It is the only Tier II junior league sanctioned by USA Hockey, and acts as an alternati ...

before the 2011–12 season. An Odessa sports writer expressed concern about the team's name, which he found insufficiently intimidating and which sounded like "something you might eat for breakfast." Jackalope Brewing Company, the first commercial brewery in

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

founded by women, opened in

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

in 2011. Its craft beers include Thunder Ann, Sarka, Fennario, Bearwalker, and Lovebird. Some people claimed that the jackelope was first encountered by John Colter.

Scholarly interpretations

Folklorist John A. Gutowski sees in the Douglas jackalope an example of an American tall tale publicized by a local community that seeks wider recognition. Through a combination of hoax and media activity, the town or other community draws attention to itself for social or economic reasons. A common adjunct to this activity involves the creation of an annual festival to perpetuate the town's association with the local legend. Gutowski finds evidence of what he calls the "protofestival" pattern throughout the United States. In addition to the jackalope, his examples include the

sea serpent A sea serpent or sea dragon is a type of dragon sea monster described in various mythologies, most notably Mesopotamian (Tiamat), Judaeo-Christian (Leviathan), Greek (Cetus, Echidna, Hydra, Scylla), and Norse (Jörmungandr). Mythology and folk ...

Nantucket Nantucket () is an island about south from Cape Cod. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the Town and County of Nantucket, a combined county/town government that is part of the U.S. state of Massachuse ...

, which in 1937 led to "stories of armadas hunting the monster, and footprint discoveries by local businessmen", accompanied by wide publicity. In similar fashion,

Newport, Arkansas Newport is a city in and the county seat of Jackson County, Arkansas, United States located on the White River northeast of Little Rock. The population was 7,879 at the 2010 census. Newport is home to a campus of the Arkansas State University ...

, publicized its

White River Monster In Arkansas folklore, the White River Monster is a large creature reportedly first spotted off the banks of the White River near Newport in northeastern Arkansas. Although reported in the press as a "monster", it is reported to be deeply loved ...

, and Algiers, Louisiana, claimed to be home to a flying Devil Man.

Ware, Massachusetts Ware is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 10,066 as of 2020. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The census-designated place of Ware, comprising the main settleme ...

, drew media attention to its local reputation for alligator sightings.

Perry, New York Perry is a town in Wyoming County, New York, United States. The population was 4,616 at the 2010 census. The town is named after Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry. The town is on the eastern border of the county. Perry is also the name of a village ...

, held Silver Lake Sea Serpent Festivals based on a local hoax. The

Hodag In American folklore, the hodag is a fearsome critter resembling a large bull-horned carnivore with a row of thick curved spines down its back. The hodag was said to be born from the ashes of cremated oxen, as the incarnation of the accumulati ...

Festival in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, celebrates "discovery" of a prehistoric creature in a nearby pit.

Willow Creek, California Willow Creek (formerly China Flat) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Humboldt County, California, United States. The population was 1,710 at the 2010 census, down from 1,743 at the 2000 census. Residents of this small mountain town are comm ...

, hosts an annual Bigfoot Festival. Since 1950, Churubusco, Indiana, has celebrated Turtle Days, based on a story, part real and part invented, about the hunt for the

Beast of Busco In Indiana folklore, the Beast of Busco is an enormous snapping turtle which citizens claimed to have seen in 1949. Despite a month-long hunt that briefly gained national attention, the "Beast of Busco" was never found. History In 1898, a farmer ...

, a

snapping turtle The Chelydridae is a family of turtles that has seven extinct and two extant genera. The extant genera are the snapping turtles, ''Chelydra'' and '' Macrochelys''. Both are endemic to the Western Hemisphere. The extinct genera are '' Acherontem ...

said to be living in a nearby lake. Common to these tales, Gutowski says, is the recurring motif of the quest for the mythical animal, often a monster. The same motif, he notes, appears in American novels such as '' Moby Dick'' and '' Old Man and the Sea'' and in monster movies such as '' King Kong'' and ''

Jaws Jaws or Jaw may refer to: Anatomy * Jaw, an opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth ** Mandible, the lower jaw Arts, entertainment, and media * Jaws (James Bond), a character in ''The Spy Who Loved Me'' and ''Moonraker'' * ...

'' and in world literature such as ''

Beowulf ''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The ...

''. The monster motif also appears in tales of contemporary places outside the United States, such as Scotland, with its

Loch Ness Monster The Loch Ness Monster ( gd, Uilebheist Loch Nis), affectionately known as Nessie, is a creature in Scottish folklore that is said to inhabit Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is often described as large, long-necked, and with one or mor ...

. What is not global, Gutowski says, is the embrace of local monster tales by American communities that put them to use through "public relations hoaxes, boisterous boosterism, and carnival atmosphere... ". Folklorist Richard M. Dorson also cites the " booster impulse, mingled with entrepreneurial hoaxing" as the way that Douglas with its jackalope, Churubusco with its giant turtle, and other towns with their own local legends rise above anonymity. He traces the impulse and the methods to the promotional literature of colonial times that depicted North America as an earthly paradise. Much later, in the 19th century, settlers transferred that optimistic vision to the

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the Wes ...

, where it culminated in "boosterism". Although other capitalist countries advertise their products, Dorson says, "...the intensity of the American ethos in advertising, huckstering, attention-getting, media-manipulating to sell a product, a personality, a town is beyond compare."

References

Relevant literature

*Branch, Michael P. ''On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World's Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer.'' Simon and Schuster, 2022.

External links

Limited Non-Resident Jackalope License
{{American tall tales Fearsome critters Fictional hybrid life forms Mythological hybrids Mythological rabbits and hares Symbols of Wyoming Taxidermy hoaxes