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Lock the Jackalope

🌵 Part history, part tall tale, part allegory. The history is real and sourced. The tall tales are labeled as tall tales.
Common name Jackalope; individually, Lock
Scientific name Lepus cornutus libertatis (horned hare of liberty)
Named for The flintlock musket: simple and reliable, no committee required
Range The High Plains and Rocky Mountain West; first mounted in Douglas, Wyoming
Temperament Peaceable. Sings with cowboys. Do not corner.
Status Rare, wary, well-antlered

The real history

A jackrabbit, a pair of antlers and a bright idea

The modern American jackalope was born in Douglas, Wyoming, in the 1930s. As told in Douglas Herrick's 2003 obituaries, Doug and his younger brother Ralph had learned taxidermy by mail order. After a hunt, they tossed a jackrabbit into their shop, and it came to rest against a pair of deer antlers. Ralph recalled that it "looked like that rabbit had horns on it." Doug is credited with the idea of mounting it that way.1

The brothers sold that first mount for $10 to Roy Ball, who hung it in the Hotel LaBonte in Douglas. It hung there until it was stolen in 1977, and the thief has never been caught.1 Doug Herrick, by the way, served as a B-17 tail gunner in World War II.1

Note on the year: sources disagree about when the first mount was made, with dates from 1932 to 1940, so we just say "the 1930s."1

The hunting license

Douglas leaned into the joke. The town calls itself the "Home of the Jackalope" and has an eight-foot jackalope statue. It also issues novelty Jackalope Hunting Licenses, valid only on June 31 (a date that doesn't exist) between midnight and 2 a.m., and only for hunters with an IQ over 50 but not over 72.2 Bills to make the jackalope Wyoming's official mythological creature passed the state House several times and died in the Senate each time.3

Old-World ancestors

Horned hares go back long before Wyoming. The Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner described a Lepus cornutus (horned hare) in his Historiae animalium in the 1550s, and the creature turned up in natural-history books for about two more centuries. German folklore still has its cousins, the Bavarian wolpertinger and Thuringia's rasselbock.3

A grain of truth: the Shope papillomavirus

In 1933, Dr. Richard E. Shope of the Rockefeller Institute described a virus that caused horn-like growths on wild cottontail rabbits.4 That virus became the first known DNA tumor virus and an important model for later research on human papillomavirus (HPV).5 Researchers think rabbits with these growths may lie behind some horned-rabbit legends. That's a plausible hypothesis, not established fact.

The lore (tall tale, all of it)

  • Singing and mimicry: jackalopes copy the voices of cowboys singing around the campfire, usually in tenor.
  • Dangerous when cornered: peaceable until cornered, then "downright vicious when threatened." Hunters are advised to wear stovepipes on their legs.
  • Scarcity: they breed only during flashes of lightning, which explains why you rarely see one.

Lock: the freedom allegory

Lock is a myth, and he knows it. Myths still teach, though, and the traits cowboys and shopkeepers gave this critter make a fair portrait of a free citizen:

Jackalope trait What it stands for
Horns for defense, never conquest 2nd Amendment. A peaceable people who remain able to defend themselves.
No census, no catalog, hunting only on June 31 4th Amendment. Secure in "persons, houses, papers, and effects."
The mimic who knows a fake voice 1st Amendment. Sees through propaganda and answers lies with free speech.
Creature of the open range Property rights and 5th Amendment "just compensation."
Famous because of a small town, a chamber of commerce and a state legislature 10th Amendment. Local is better. No federal Department of Jackalopes.
Two brothers, a mail-order course and a happy accident Free enterprise. Nobody wrote a five-year plan for the jackalope.

The contrast with 1917 is no accident. The Bolsheviks disarmed the people by decree, created a secret police that published lists of "enemies of the people," and shut down opposition newspapers. (See Russia 1917: From Bread to the Cheka.) Lock keeps his antlers.

The Jackalope Creed

I keep my horns for defense, never for conquest.
My rights come from my Creator, not from a commissar.
I will not be registered, rounded up, or collectivized.
I know a borrowed voice when I hear one, and I sing in my own.
What I raise is mine to keep, to trade, or to give freely.
I keep the peace, and I keep my powder dry.
Wide range, small government, free people. That's the West I defend.

Field notes: Hard to find. Harder to disarm. · Shall not be infringed. Shall not be found. · Bureaucrats may apply for a permit on June 31.

  1. Martin, Douglas. "Douglas Herrick, 82, Dies; Father of West's Jackalope." The New York Times, Jan. 19, 2003; Oliver, Myrna. "Douglas Herrick, 82; on a Whim He Created 'Jackalope'." Los Angeles Times, Jan. 23, 2003. Accounts of the first mount's year vary (Ralph Herrick gave 1932 in 2003 and 1934 in a 1977 New York Times feature; other sources give 1936–1940). ↩↩↩↩

  2. City of Douglas, Wyoming, Jackalope Hunting License and "The Legend of the Jackalope" (reprint of "Wyoming, Where Deer and Jackalope Play," The New York Times, Nov. 27, 1977): https://www.cityofdouglas.org/ ↩

  3. "Jackalope," Wikipedia (secondary; summarizes Wyoming Legislature HB 4 (2005), HB 149 (2013), HB 66 (2015), and Gessner's Historiae animalium): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackalope. See also Michael P. Branch, On the Trail of the Jackalope (Pegasus Books, 2022). ↩↩

  4. Shope, R. E., and Hurst, E. W. "Infectious Papillomatosis of Rabbits." Journal of Experimental Medicine 58(5), 1933. ↩

  5. Javier, R. T., and Butel, J. S. "The History of Tumor Virology." Cancer Research 68(19), 2008: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3501656/ ↩