Texas government offers huge prize for eradicating long-nosed cotton pest

Needmore Cotton Gin, Bailey County, Texas

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1903, a proclamation was made from the steps of the Texas Capitol offering a $50,000 prize for the discovery of a way to rid Texas of the boll weevil.

This small snout beetle had been ravaging cotton crops in Mexico for at least two millennia.
Its introduction into Texas seems to have been first announced by Charles W. DeRyee of Corpus Christi in a letter dated October 3, 1894. Continued