A rat hunter snags a large rodent in this photo from the early 1900s supplied by the Smithsonian Museums. Temple’s rat problem was fueled by boardwalks and easily accessible scraps of food. The railroad brought people and merchandise to the new city of Temple in the late 1800s, but it also brought an abundance of hungry rodents.

STORY UPDATE: Previously unpublished information has been added to this report.

By DAVID STONE, Our Town Temple

Welcome to Ratsville. Population? Thousands.

In its early days, Temple wasn’t always called by its proper name.

Some called it Mudville for its thick blackland prairie soil. Some referred to the new city as Tanglefoot because of the mud and its reputation as a wild frontier town that loved its booze. But the most common nickname in the 1880s? Ratsville wins hands down.

Thanks to the railroad boom, Temple grew faster in population than in structure — meaning there weren’t nearly enough homes for the growing numbers of railroad workers assigned to the new town. Tent neighborhoods sprung up and folks — mostly men — roughed it while permanent housing was constructed.

Temple resembled a giant camp site. People sleeping in tents, cooking on campfires and eating under shade trees. City services such as sanitation were in their infancies, so there were lots of food scraps around. And soon, they were lots of rodents. According to early reports, Temple had way more rats than people.

Temple’s early business district looked much different than today. Instead of buildings having concrete sidewalks for pedestrian traffic, the Downtown area had boardwalks connecting the various shops, factories and bars. The wooden walkways had a few inches of space between the walking surface and the dirt streets below, providing ample space for rats to flourish and scurry through the booming city.

By the 1890s, however, the face of Temple began to change. Arriving trains brought women, children, china, crystal and all the touches of a modern society. Whole families packed their belongings onto boxcars and headed to Temple.

The city acquired kinder nicknames such as Progressive Temple and the Prairie Queen. Times were changing, and the rats had to go.

Rats were feared and despised in Temple and across the old West. The large rodent spread diseases such as rat bite fever, salmonella, Hantavirus and even bubonic plague.

Bubonic plague, known as the Black Death that decimated Europe centuries earlier, was actually caused by rat fleas rather than rats themselves. But, if there were no rats, the fleas would disappear.

Fears of bubonic plague in the West spread in the late 1800s with an outbreak in California that killed 102 of the 105 confirmed cases. That confirmation — along with other health concerns — was enough for cities and towns to increase their efforts to get rid of the pests. Temple was in step with these efforts as the bitter struggle between man and rat heated up.

The rat problem was so bad the city began a bounty program and paid cash for rodent carcasses. Some rat hunters actually brought in ferrets to aid in the hunt. The ferrets, though, were hard to control and a hunter could only work one ferret at a time. Progress was slow and the ferret plan was abandoned in favor of other rat-catching methods.

Then, like now, there were three effective methods of rat control — cats, traps and poisons. Since most local cats were of the “bob” variety and the job was too big for traps alone, Temple relied heavily on poisoning the vermin.

Poisons of the day tasted like, well, poison. To improve the taste poison was mixed with meat or grain. Rats that survived a first bite would not return for a second, and they often urinated on the bait to warn other rats to stay away. To solve the problem, mixtures had to be strong enough to kill in one bite. Unfortunately, there were other casualties such as children and pets.To solve this problem, cities such as Temple turned to an old West standby — red squill.

Red squill has been used since at least 1500 BC. It is a flowering plant with bulbous roots that are cut into slices, dried in the sun and ground into powder. Squill kills the rat by paralyzing its heart, and it is less toxic than traditional poisons of the time. Human or dog consumption is rarely fatal because vomiting gets rid of the poison. Rats, apparently, can’t throw up.

Rats were not native to Texas, so how did they get to Temple? Good question.

The first rats in the United States are believed to have been brought by Hessian troops hired by the British to fight American colonists in 1776. The ships transported soldiers and boxes of rat-infested grain. Rats rapidly spread west, aided in large part by the railroad industry that gave Temple life.

MONDAY | MAY 23, 2022

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today’s best bets

• Guest Party at Arthur Murray Dance Center in Temple. 7 p.m. We would like to invite you to be our guest for the evening. You'll get to see a professional performance, sample a few different dances and learn what we are all about! Open to the public, but please RSVP at (254) 721-9524

• Lonesome Dove: The Photo Exhibit runs through June 25 at Temple Railroad & Heritage Museum. The exhibit is a collection of black-and-white framed photos captured by the late Bill Wittliff, renowned photographer, writer, and co-executive producer of the popular Western mini-series.

• Yoga Classes offered by Sara Dodd at the Cultural Activities Center. $12. 5:15 p.m. class.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

To include your events in What’s Happening, email information to OurTownTemple@gmail.com. Photos are welcome to for use in the publication as space permits!

In 1924, a minor league baseball team was founded in Temple with a Scott & White-inspired mascot. What was the team called ? ANSWER IS AT END OF TODAY’S ISSUE

On this day in 1934, celebrated Depression-era Texas outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were killed in a roadside ambush arranged by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer outside of Gibsland, Louisiana. Riddled by some 167 bullets, the bodies were taken to Arcadia and later put on public display in Dallas before being buried in their respective family burial plots. Bonnie and Clyde committed a string of burglaries, robberies and murders across the region, including Temple.

TODAY’S TEMPLE TRIVIA ANSWER: The Temple Surgeons played in a Texas Association of Baseball League against teams like the Marlin Bathers and the Mexia Gushers. The mascots actually depicted what the town was famous for. For example, Marlin had the hot mineral springs and many celebrities flocked to that Central Texas city to soak in the “miracle water.” Mexia was named the Gushers because of the oil boom. The Surgeons signed Belton native Roy Mitchell in 1926 and Temple was the last stop for the MLB star who pitched for the White Sox, Reds and St. Louis Browns.