Armadillos: An Unusual Mammal Links the Histories of Texas and the German Immigrant Experience

There are several iconic images that people the world over associate with Texas, several of them promoted by the state itself: longhorn cattle, the Lone Star, cowboys, the Alamo, “Don’t Mess with Texas”. Natives, though, know there is a little critter that has become a beloved state totem unlike any other: the humble armadillo.

Texans love these little guys, at least the idea of them. Austin’s annual run, the Capitol 10K, has prominently featured a running armadillo in sneakers in its logo since the 1980s, and you can find armadillos – or “dillies”, as my grandmother used to call them – everywhere if you pay attention, on t-shirts, advertisements, neon signs in bars, you name it. The drunken dilly has always been a favorite of mine.

Charming graphics and tchotchkes aside, Texans most often come into contact with armadillos as roadkill on the highway. Ranchers generally consider them pests: the tunnels armadillos dig can be dangerous for livestock, for whom a broken leg, the result of blindly stepping into a tunnel entrance in the ground, has no remedy.

Armadillos and my family go way back. To the 19^th century, as a matter of fact: the Apelt Armadillo Farm was opened by German immigrant Charles Apelt, my great-grandfather, in 1898 in Comfort, Texas, today about 45 miles northwest of San Antonio. Articles have appeared from time to time in newspapers and magazines, and it is striking how they tend to follow a similar structure: marvel at the novelty and variety of the product, recount the story of how Charles lit on the idea to make baskets out of armadillos, then discuss what makes Texas armadillos unique.

First, the novelty and variety of products offered by the Farm: nose-to-tail baskets lined in satin, plain and beaded armadillo lampshades for floor, desk and bedside lamps, ashtrays, paperweights, and more. Catalogues were available to potential customers that showed all the various ways one might decorate one’s home with dilly products.

Need a lamp? (From the author's personal collection.)

From one of the Apelt Armadillo Farm catalogues. Unfortunately, the catalogues give no indication of their year(s) of publication. (From the author's personal collection.)

My great-grandmother Martha even made the dillies into handbags, items  difficult to find on the antique markets today.

To open the handbag, just flip the head back. (From the author's personal collection.)

Then comes the story of how such distinctive items came to be. The November 14, 1925, issue of the Miami News, featured a story on the Apelt Armadillo Farm. It is worth quoting at some length:

Charles Apelt…one day years ago was going to the house for the midday meal when a strange animal jumped from the tall grass and went hopping away. Picking up a rock, Mr. Apelt threw at [sic] the strange being and hit it on the head, whereupon, it rolled over, dead. He picked it up and examined it, his wonder growing. Never had he seen anything like it, with its long snout and jointed tail and a jointed house on its back.

He had been used to skinning every animal he killed, however, and preserving the hide, so he began to consider way and means to skin this one. But this was different. Finally he decided to take the animal out of the hide instead of taking the hide off the animal. This plan proved successful, but when he tried to nail the shell to the barn to dry he discovered it would not stretch out flat.

About that time his wife called him to lunch and he picked the shell up and carried it to the house, leaving it in the sun while he ate. When he came out the sun had so dried the shell that it began to cup up. “Basket!” instinctively thought Mr. Apelt his [sic] early training [as a basketmaker] prompting the thought, doubtlessly. So he brought the tail around and joined it to the snout and hung it up on the porch to finish drying.

One does not have to look hard to find elements of storytelling here. For example, armadillos are fast runners. That Apelt could have been startled by one as it began running away, then have the wherewithal to bend down, pick up a conveniently located rock and hurl it at the still rapidly moving creature with such precision that it knocks the animal on the head hard enough to kill it instantly seems unlikely. However, it is a story oft repeated, and one suspects that both the Apelt family and the journalists enjoyed the telling of it.

In addition to the armadillo products offered by the Farm, the Apelts also sold live animals to zoos and individuals desiring unique pets; they also sold them to scientists and laboratories wishing to study their odd reproductive qualities (they always give birth to four babies per litter that are either all male or all female) or the disease leprosy, which they can develop similar to humans. In fact, family records include this sheet of paper, the draft of a 1971 letter written by my mother at Kathryn’s request, which was to be typed up and sent to individuals in Geneva, Switzerland, and Sao Paulo, Brazil, that had inquired about armadillo ownership and shipping fees.

Draft of a letter replying to international inquiries about armadillos as pets, written by Kathleen Adams Apelt in 1971. (From the author's personal collection.)

Page 2. (From the author's personal collection.)

Old family photographs show plenty of activity and well maintained buildings at the Farm, as well a family seemingly well-to-do. I know little of those people or the operations in those days, but it appears that novelty items and farming in south-central Texas in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries could provide a comfortable living.

Charles Apelt. Year unknown. (From the Apelt Family's private collection.)

The showroom. (From the Apelt Family private collection.)

(From the Apelt Family private collection.)

This may be the most widely reproduced photograph of the Apelt Armadillo Farm. The author's grandfather, Kurt Charles, is not pictured here because he was not yet born. The two children shown are his older brothers, Armin (left) and Willie (right). (From the author's personal collection.)

I have a confession: I took the armadillos and the Farm for granted all my life. The old photographs show a lovely house with lots of people and buildings surrounding it, but after the Farm was closed in the early 1970s, the property was abandoned for decades. Growing up, I remember driving by it occasionally with my grandmother, Kathryn, or my parents and wondering why we always had to stop on the side of the highway, leave the air conditioned comfort of the car for the awful Texas heat, and go walk through the high grass and weeds, full of grasshoppers and goodness knew what else, to look at an old ruin. I have heard the stories from various members of my family for so long that I cannot keep straight from whom I learned what. Now, as I attempt to view the Farm through an historian’s eyes, I find it challenging to marry family lore with empirical fact. I suppose that makes the exercise all the more valuable, and I embrace the journey. I consider this post my first step along this familiar yet new yellow brick road.

The Apelt Armadillo Farm received some fresh attention in 2010, when Texas recognized its impact on the Comfort community with an historical roadside marker following the Farm’s painstaking restoration by antique enthusiast Harriette Gorman, who now owns and resides on the property. 

In its heyday, the Apelt Armadillo Farm employed local residents, both for armadillo production and for its non-dilly operations as well (it was a fully functional farm and ranch in addition to its novelty products).

The day before the historical marker dedication in 2010, my father, Kurt Apelt, Jr., and I visited Mrs. Gorman to tour the restored property. She loved to talk about the place, and about its history, and I remember she commented on how the Farm helped struggling locals during the Great Depression: the Farm would buy armadillos from the locals, providing needed income during that difficult time. That was new information to me, and it instilled a little nugget of pride that my family had been able and willing to help their community in such a way. I am excited to continue digging into the Farm’s past, a past that represents a small part of the history of the West, of Texas, and of the immigrant experience. It represents my past.

The main house in May, 2010. (From the author's personal collection.)

The restored novelty showroom building in May, 2010. (From the author's personal collection.)