The Legend Of Ol' Rip The Horned Toad Who Reportedly Survived 31 Years Of Hibernation And Met President Coolidge

If you go to the Eastland County Courthouse in Texas, you may lay your eyes on an unusual sight: a dead Texas horned lizard on display in its own velvet-lined coffin. According to local legend and newspaper reports from the 1920s, the reptile certainly earned this honor, living an unusually long time trapped in a time capsule beneath the courthouse.

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Texas is home to the Texas horned lizard (Phrynosoma cornutum), a spiky-bodied reptile often referred to as a "horned toad". The animals were subject to an old local myth that they are able to survive for over 100 years, without the need for food and water. 

In 1897, the courthouse was under construction, and local man Ernest Wood decided to use the opportunity to put that idea to the test, pausing only briefly to traumatize his son, Will. Wood took his son's pet horned toad, then named "Blinky", and placed it within the cornerstone of the new courthouse building. 

For over 30 years, the lizard remained unbothered and untouched, happily hibernating / being dead in its time capsule. Then, in 1928, it came time to demolish the building again to make way for a modern people’s temple. Wood contacted the local paper to inform them of his experiment, and by the time it came around to opening up the cornerstone, there were reportedly over 1,000 people there to witness the lizard being unsealed.

To their surprise, according to local reports, when the cornerstone was opened up, County Judge Edward S. Pritchard found that the animal was alive.

"It is a West Texas tradition that a horned toad can exist a century without food or water. A skeptical newspaper man had the Judge verify the report that the toad was alive when taken from its long entombment," a New York Times article from February 20, 1928, explained.

"After the cornerstone was removed the toad appeared lifeless for some time, but in a little while it opened its eyes. In about 20 minutes it began to breathe. The mouth, however, appeared to have grown together."

The horned toad became known as "Ol' Rip", a reference to Rip Van Winkle, a fictional character who slept through the American Revolution. 

"I got there late and got on top of a pile of rubble to see what was going on," local Eldress Gattis, then 14, said of witnessing the event. "When they uncovered it, I couldn't see him. Then [the judge] held him by the tail, and he was wiggling."

After being unsealed, Ol' Rip / the horned toad formerly known as Blinky reportedly recovered, having had its mouth unsealed, and lived a strange year before dying and being placed on display, even meeting President Calvin Coolidge. 

"Ol' Rip was my pet. He dashed from an ant bed in front of a truck with me in pursuit, and later to a vacant lot where I had released 250 horned frogs," Edith Wood Grissom, Will Wood's daughter, who kept the animal after its slumber, said years later in a school history project. "He was easy to find as he was gray with worn horns and a limp from a broken leg. He hibernated in a goldfish bowl, and I put him on the back porch. He froze."

Ol' Rip was exhibited before being returned to the courthouse following World War II. While it is a fun story and legend, it is likely not entirely true, with horned toads living around five to eight years in their natural habitat, and a little longer in captivity. Crucially, both of these situations have a ready supply of food and oxygen, which Blinky was deprived of.

According to the 1993 book O Ye Legendary Horned Frog by historian June Rayfield Welch, five local men were the perpetrators of the hoax, placing a young frog into the time capsule shortly before it was opened. The legend of Ol' Rip is likely actually the tale of two horned lizards, one of whom met a president and went on very confusing tours, and another who was buried alive in a courthouse.