{"id":114,"date":"2010-04-30T10:55:22","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T15:55:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/?p=114"},"modified":"2010-04-30T10:55:22","modified_gmt":"2010-04-30T15:55:22","slug":"matt-miller%e2%80%99s-treasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/?p=114","title":{"rendered":"Matt Miller’s Treasure"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the early spring of 1897, Matt Miller of Joplin was the recipient of what may have been the first armadillo in Southwest Missouri.\u00a0 Miller’s friend F.D.\u00a0 Bancroft of Von Ormy, Texas, sent Miller the armadillo as a gift.<\/p>\n

\"Armadillo\"<\/a>

Image of an armadillo via the Library of Congress<\/p><\/div>\n

The Globe<\/em> reported that the armadillo was, \u201ceighteen inches long and a foot tall.\u00a0 It is covered with a shell something like a turtle, has four legs long enough to reach to the ground, at the bottom of which are four feet that look something like a cross between a hoof and a cat’s paw.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller described it as a, \u201cland bird, strictly omnivorous and carnivorous.\u00a0 It eats mice, snakes, lizards, ants, and other beasts and vermin.\u201d He added, \u201cThe ladies are invited to call at my office and see it.\u00a0 Sleeps by day and runs around hunting something to eat at night.\u201d Miller, already proud of his gift, boasted, \u201cIt will dig into the ground faster than a man can with a spade, and when he gets in he spreads his armor out against the sides of the hole s o that a team of mules can’t haul him out.\u00a0 All are urged to come and see him and it won’t cost anyone a cent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: Joplin Globe, Library of Congress<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the early spring of 1897, Matt Miller of Joplin was the recipient of what may have been the first armadillo in Southwest Missouri.\u00a0 Miller’s friend F.D.\u00a0 Bancroft of Von Ormy, Texas, sent Miller the armadillo as a gift. The Globe reported that the armadillo was, \u201ceighteen inches long and a foot tall.\u00a0 It is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,35],"tags":[440,441,32,31,8,11,48],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.historicjoplin.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}