DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say — and friend, this one's a keeper. Now picture a German immigrant stepping off into the Hill Country back in 1887. Charles Apelt, born in 1862, rolls into Comfort, Texas, and sets to work as a farmer.
Honest labor, good soil — nothing too unusual yet. But then Charles Apelt meets the armadillo. The nine-banded variety, to be precise.
Dasypus Novemcinctus, if you want to get scientific about it. That little armored creature waddling through the brush, and somewhere in the back of Charles Apelt's mind, something clicked. That shell.
That remarkable, hard, natural shell. What could a man do with that? In the late 1890s, he found out.
Apelt opened the Armadillo Basket Factory right here, and the novelty armadillo basket turned out to be — and I want you to appreciate the scale of this — a genuine phenomenon. Within its first six years of operation, forty thousand orders shipped out. Not to just Texas.
Not to just the United States. To the world. By 1904, Charles Apelt was confident enough to display his product at the St.
Louis World's Fair. The world's fair, y'all. And the business kept on growing.
By the 1920s, the operation employed dozens of local hunters. At its height, the farm was turning out about a hundred baskets every single week. A plain basket ran you two dollars and fifty cents.
You wanted it dressed up with silk, bows, and beads? That'd be fifteen dollars. But baskets were just the beginning.
Apelt found additional uses for those shells — floor lamps, table lamps, desk sets, smoking stands. And some armadillos were captured alive and sold to zoos, to pet owners, and to research facilities. The demand for live armadillos in medical research got so high that Apelt constructed an elaborate network of concrete burrows and tunnels right in front of his own home just to keep up with it.
Charles Apelt ran that farm until the day he died in 1944. His wife, Martha, picked it up and carried it forward — and when Martha died in 1947, the business closed. But it didn't stay closed.
The farm reopened in 1951 and ran again until 1971, all told representing decades of meaningful employment for the people of the area. The Apelt Armadillo Farm isn't operating today, but it hasn't been forgotten either. A German immigrant, a peculiar little armored mammal, and forty thousand orders in six years.
Charles Apelt looked at something everyone else was stepping around in the dark and saw a factory. That's a Hill Country story if I've ever told one.
What the marker says
In the late 1890s, Charles Apelt (1862-1944) opened a unique commercial enterprise at this site. Apelt, a German immigrant, came to Comfort in 1887 and worked as a farmer. Here he encountered the armadillo, an animal native to the Americas, and began to develop a commercial use for the mammal’s hard shell. Utilizing the nine-banded variety (Dasypus Novemcinctus) he soon opened the Armadillo Basket Factory. The novelty armadillo basket was a quick success; within its first six years of operation, the Armadillo factory shipped 40,000 orders throughout the U.S. and the world. In 1904, Apelt displayed his product at the St. Louis World’s Fair, and by the 1920s, the operation employed dozens of local hunters. At its height, the establishment produced about 100 baskets each week, which sold for $2.50 each or $15 if decorated with silk, bows and beads. Apelt found additional functions for armadillo shells, using them for floor and table lamps, desk sets and smoking stands. Some armadillos were captured live and sold to zoos, pet owners and research facilities; Apelt constructed an elaborate network of concrete burrows and tunnels in front of his home to meet the high demand for armadillos in medical research. Charles Apelt ran the farm until he died in 1944. His wife, Martha, continued to run the business, which closed when she died in 1947. The farm reopened in 1951 before again closing in 1971. During its years of operation, the farm was a significant source of employment in the area. Although it is no longer in operation, Apelt Armadillo Farm continues to be remembered for its production of distinctive and famed souvenirs. (2009)