THE BIG JACKRABBIT HUNT

I want to tell you about that big 1925 Jackrabbit hunt. I was a young man when I was on that drive. Not many are living that were on that drive.

The rabbits were eating up the country. They claimed there were 60 rabbits on every section. We were covered with them. There are 900 square sections in Swisher County. That's a lot of jackrabbits.

We got together here and had instructions as what to do. We were to go to the east line of Castro County. Line up to cover 30 miles. Around on the 4 sides of Castro for 120 miles. They had advertised everywhere. I guess there were 10,000 people. Some came from Lubbock and all around.

Horton Tracy figured out how many rabbits we would have in the pens, because there were so many to each section. Dimmitt was just a prairie. Nobody living there hardly. They put up these pens with high fences so we could drive them in and hold them.

They were to feed dinner at Dimmitt. They had a truck load of light bread and a barrel of pickles. People were jammed around until we couldn't get through the crowd.

We got over there at 9 o'clock. Fifteen miles to drive rabbits to Dimmitt. People about 20 feet apart. You could drive them a mile but at the second mile they would turn around and run between your legs. They'd run over you to come back where they were hatched and raised. That's as far as they would go. Some could kill them with a stick. Nobody had guns. Wasn't supposed to.