04/01/2026
We knew it the whole time.
🌵 COLEMAN COUNTY MUSEUM PRESENTS 🌵
💙 A Newly Discovered Chapter of Coleman History 💙
“The Great Coleman Jackalope Drive of 1893”
Before railroads fully connected Coleman County to the rest of Texas… before trucks lined Commercial Avenue… there was a brief, ambitious, and almost entirely forgotten experiment that locals once believed would change the economy forever.
In the spring of 1893, a group of Coleman ranchers—facing drought and dwindling cattle prices—turned their attention to a different kind of livestock.
Jackalopes.
According to recently “rediscovered” notes from a traveling salesman (found tucked inside an old ledger donated to the museum), Coleman County was once home to one of the largest attempted jackalope drives in Texas history.
Described as “faster than a frightened c**t and twice as stubborn,” jackalopes were rumored to thrive in the brush country just outside of town. Ranchers believed that if they could be gathered and driven north along the Great Western Trail, they might fetch a high price from curious buyers in Kansas and beyond.
What followed was… chaos.
Eyewitness accounts claim the drive began just south of town, with nearly two dozen men attempting to herd the creatures using grain sacks, lariats, and—at one point—a washtub.
It did not go well.
Jackalopes scattered in every direction. One report claims they “leapt clear over a wagon team,” while another insists a single jackalope led six grown men on horseback in circles for nearly an hour before vanishing into a mesquite thicket.
By sundown, the drive had completely unraveled.
The final tally:
• 0 jackalopes successfully driven
• 3 broken hats
• 1 horse that refused to return to the pasture for two days
• And one rancher who reportedly swore he’d “never again invest in anything with antlers and an attitude”
The effort was quietly abandoned, and like many stories of the frontier, it faded into local legend.
Or so we thought.
Today, some longtime Coleman families still claim that if you sit quietly at dusk—just outside town—you might catch a glimpse of something small, fast… and just a little too clever to be caught.
And if you do…
best leave it be.
😉 Happy April Fools’ Day from the Coleman County Museum
(And yes… we’re still keeping an eye out for jackalopes.)
Go Visit One of our favorite Sponsers at Jackalopes’ Golf and Games, at 111 E. College, Coleman, Texas 76834
Written by Sara LeMoine Knox
Coleman County Museum | CHAPS
