Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild.
Speaker 2: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
Speaker 2: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
Speaker 2: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. What we call a
Speaker 2: group of animals says a lot about how we see them.
Speaker 2: We call a group of crows a murder because of
Speaker 2: the bird's ominous appearance. We call ants a colony or
Speaker 2: an army of ants because of how they move information
Speaker 2: like a small society. And when you see a plague
Speaker 2: of locusts on the horizon, well, that collective noun comes
Speaker 2: from the Book of Exodus in the Bible. But what
Speaker 2: makes a locust unique among these creatures is that there
Speaker 2: really isn't such a thing as a solitary locust. When
Speaker 2: they're on their own, we call them grasshoppers. Taxonomically, they're identical.
Speaker 2: The only real difference is how they socialize. A grasshopper
Speaker 2: is solitary locusts, however, swarm. In other words, not all
Speaker 2: grasshoppers are locusts, but all locusts are grasshoppers. They are
Speaker 2: a creature with a surprisingly rich cultural history. They're mentioned
Speaker 2: in a number of religious texts from around the world
Speaker 2: in different cultures. As far as swarming animals go, they
Speaker 2: are the most famous. And with that in mind, let
Speaker 2: me take you back to the eighteen seventies in America.
Speaker 2: Immediately post Civil War, post westward expansion, farmers in the
Speaker 2: Great Plains of North America were working hard to keep
Speaker 2: up with a rapidly changing country, making a home for
Speaker 2: themselves in a land that was settled but not fully developed.
Speaker 2: Late in eighteen seventy three to early eighteen seventy four
Speaker 2: was a tough time for people, in particular an economic
Speaker 2: recession that led to all harsh winter and a dry summer.
Speaker 2: And while the panic in the economy was the main
Speaker 2: thing on people's minds in late eighteen seventy three, conditions
Speaker 2: would be just right for a new sort of panic
Speaker 2: to begin as well. The first sightings were in June
Speaker 2: of eighteen seventy three, but they wouldn't reach their full
Speaker 2: peak until the following year. It started as a shadow
Speaker 2: in the sky, a glistening, vaporous cloud, but the closer
Speaker 2: it came the darker. It really seemed there were thousands
Speaker 2: upon thousands of insects in the sky rocky mountain, locusts
Speaker 2: coming right for them. Farmers scrambled to protect their crops
Speaker 2: against the impending swarm. They threw blankets over vegetables, They
Speaker 2: locked their windows, They covered their wells to protect the water.
Speaker 2: But after a point there was only so much you
Speaker 2: could do. The incoming locusts ate everything that wasn't nailed down.
Speaker 2: They ate away the blankets that protected the crops. They
Speaker 2: ate bridles from the backs of horses. They ate curtains
Speaker 2: and sheets when they got inside. Some farmers had to.
Speaker 1: Shake the locusts off their bedclothes before going to sleep
Speaker 1: at night, and again when they woke up in the morning.
Speaker 1: At least one woman reported that as she froze with fear,
Speaker 1: the creatures ate the dress she was wearing. This locust
Speaker 1: plague lasted for five whole years. It was a wave
Speaker 1: that swept across the center of North America, covering over
Speaker 1: two million square miles between eighteen seventy four and eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven. Multiple state governments attempted to address the devastation,
Speaker 1: with minimal results. They offered bounties to those who could
Speaker 1: destroy the eggs in between swarms, but there were simply
Speaker 1: too many locusts to keep up with. Farmers resorted to
Speaker 1: a series of increasingly elaborate measures to dispose of the bugs.
Speaker 1: In one instance, someone dug a ditch around his farm,
Speaker 1: filled it with tar, and then lit it on fire
Speaker 1: to create a barrier between the locusts and his crops,
Speaker 1: but the locusts were so thick in the air that
Speaker 1: they smothered the flames with their bodies. Overall, there were
Speaker 1: trillions of locusts involved in the plague. One of the
Speaker 1: swarms was one thousand, eight hundred miles long. For context,
Speaker 1: that is over half the width of the continental United States.
Speaker 1: It took five whole days for this enormous swarm to
Speaker 1: pass overhead, and in that time it would completely block
Speaker 1: out the sun for up to six hours at a time.
Speaker 1: Some farmers starved in the devastation. Others took the advice
Speaker 1: of local entomologists and actually ate the locusts for sustenance.
Speaker 1: They were, however, in the minority, as eating large bugs
Speaker 1: requires some effort to get used to, even if they're
Speaker 1: cooked and well seasoned. The locusts disappeared suddenly in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven, following an especially cold winter that likely destroyed
Speaker 1: many of their eggs. The particular type of locusts that
Speaker 1: caused the catastrophe, the Rocky Mountain locust, is believed to
Speaker 1: have gone extinct by the early nineteen hundreds, the plague
Speaker 1: of the eighteen seventies becoming in hindsight, something of a
Speaker 1: last hurrah for the species. Few creatures on their way
Speaker 1: to extinction go out with a bang rather than a whimper,
Speaker 1: and these locust plagues are a reminder to all of
Speaker 1: us that even the smallest insect can make a legendary
Speaker 1: impact on history. The people of Mitchell's Lake had questions, namely,
Speaker 1: what intarnation was doctor Charles Campbell building on the edge
Speaker 1: of town. For weeks they had watched the unusual structure
Speaker 1: come together plank by plank. It wasn't a barn or
Speaker 1: a house, or any kind of building they'd seen before.
Speaker 1: Tall and narrow, with odd slats and perched on four
Speaker 1: thick beams, it loomed over the lake an enigmatic wooden monolith.
Speaker 1: No one could guess its purpose, and whenever anyone asked
Speaker 1: Campbell what he was up to. He would respond with
Speaker 1: a knowing wink and a smile that he would say,
Speaker 1: is a cure. It wasn't much of an answer, to
Speaker 1: be honest, but the locals had no doubt what disease
Speaker 1: he meant. In nineteen eleven, malaria was a major public
Speaker 1: health threat in Texas, and San Antonio was one of
Speaker 1: the worst hit cities. The swampy Mitchell's Lake area on
Speaker 1: the city south side was home to millions of mosquitoes
Speaker 1: that carried the parasite. Earlier that year, Campbell had tested
Speaker 1: the local population of the eighty seven adults and children
Speaker 1: who lived on farms around the lake, and astonishing seventy
Speaker 1: eight of them were infected with malaria. So you can
Speaker 1: imagine they were desperate for help, and there was a
Speaker 1: reason to hope that doctor Campbell might actually have a solution.
Speaker 1: The forty six year old two Lane graduate was a
Speaker 1: respected bacteriologist. Just a decade earlier, he had helped stop
Speaker 1: a typhoid epidemic that had seized San Antonio. But recently
Speaker 1: something had changed. Campbell had shuddered his medical practice and
Speaker 1: become a recluse. He'd gone off the grid, spending hours
Speaker 1: wandering in the woods alone. People said that he'd gone battye.
Speaker 1: But when Campbell finally completed his tower in the spring
Speaker 1: of nineteen eleven, the mystery only deepened. Soon, strained noxious
Speaker 1: odors began wafting from the thirty foot tall wooden structure,
Speaker 1: and then the noises began, not from the tower itself,
Speaker 1: but from the surrounding area. Late at night, people started
Speaker 1: hearing a loud orchestra of music from deep in the woods.
Speaker 1: Campbell was showing up near abandoned buildings in large trees,
Speaker 1: blasting music at ridiculous levels. He banked pots and pans
Speaker 1: and made as much ruckous as he could, and from
Speaker 1: there it didn't take long for the locals to figure
Speaker 1: out what he was up to. The doctor was driving
Speaker 1: bats out of their hiding places, making their old roosts
Speaker 1: unbearable with the noise, and where did they go to
Speaker 1: the carefully designed structure that he had just built for them.
Speaker 1: The Tower at Mitchell's Lake was a house after all,
Speaker 1: just not for people. The stench wafting from it was
Speaker 1: guano or bat droppings. Campbell had filled his bathhouse with
Speaker 1: cheesecloth soaked in the stuff hoping that it would make
Speaker 1: his tower more inviting to the displaced bats, and it worked.
Speaker 1: First a few bats arrived, and then hundreds, and then thousands.
Speaker 1: Soon each evening brought a dark cloud spiraling from the
Speaker 1: tower as bats took to the sky in search of food.
Speaker 1: The Mitchell's Lake mosquito population plummeted as a result, and
Speaker 1: with it went the disease. The next year Campbell retested
Speaker 1: the population, there wasn't a single case of malaria. Words
Speaker 1: spread quickly, and similar towers began to crop up all
Speaker 1: throughout Texas, Florida, and even as far away as Italy.
Speaker 1: They weren't always as effective as the one at Mitchell's Lake,
Speaker 1: and eventually malaria was eradicated in the US through more
Speaker 1: traditional medical advancements, But for a time, Campbell's clever innovation
Speaker 1: was the best weapon against the disease. His work has
Speaker 1: had a lasting effect too, not just in combating malaria,
Speaker 1: but in changing people's relationship with bats. Once viewed as
Speaker 1: disease carrying pests, they became a valued fixture in Texas skies. Today,
Speaker 1: they're protected by state law in recognition of their eco
Speaker 1: logical importance. And while Campbell's original tower has now collapsed.
Speaker 1: Modern versions continue to be built. One near Brackencave in
Speaker 1: San Antonio houses over twenty million bats, the largest mammal
Speaker 1: colony in the world. They're a natural, cost effective form
Speaker 1: of pest control, keeping farms and orchards free of insects
Speaker 1: without the need for pesticides. It turns out doctor Campbell
Speaker 1: learned a thing or two wandering around in those woods.
Speaker 1: Thanks to him, we finally learned that sometimes bat neighbors
Speaker 1: make the best neighbors. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
Speaker 1: book series, and television show, and you can learn all
Speaker 1: about it over at Theworldoflore dot com. And until next time,
Speaker 1: stay curious.