Collecting Classic Dead-Snake Photos

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I spend a few days each week ensconced in the Briscoe Center for American History at UT, looking at microfilms of Texas country newspapers from the mid-1940s through the late 1980s for a book project. I think I’m chasing a pretty interesting character and hope eventually I can cadge a modest book contract out of this.

While perusing I often become sidetracked by a horrific tale of murder, or a gruesome car wreck, maybe a long-forgotten political scandal involving a county commissioner. In Texas, most political scandals involve either county commissioners or sheriffs, in my experience. These positions are often filled with folks who haven’t been able to find honest work so they ran for office and somehow won. That, of course, is an over-generalization, but it is based on more than three decades of covering small-town politics.

Dead-snake photographs have long been a staple of country newspapers, and while gathering pieces written by the person I’m researching, I have been collecting dead-snake photos. I’m not sure why, other than they just crack me up. Besides, I have shot a few dead-snake photos during my checkered journalistic career, so I have contributed to the genre.

My favorite dead-snake photo thus far comes from the Diboll Free Press. A fellow missing a front tooth but sporting a wide grin poses with a five-foot rattler draped around his shoulders. He killed the rascal right in town, according to the caption, which also says the snake killer was considering eating the meat — about ten pounds’ worth. The guy is wearing a T-shirt that says, “I Went To A Fight And A Hockey Game Broke Out.” It likely was easy enough to find a fight in Diboll then or now — situated smack dab in Deep East Texas — but finding a hockey game to watch was a challenge in 1984 (when the photo was published) as it is now. Since I was running the weekly in the neighboring county of San Augustine, I can attest to both the steady opportunities to shoot dead-snake photos and the dearth of hockey matches.

The photo, in country-paper fashion, is dog-legged into the front page’s lead story: “Bad Burke Water Stirs Complaints.” I can attest, having once been a customer of its water system, that Burke — a burg between Diboll and Lufkin — sold some of the foulest smelling water this side of the Attoyac River. Come to think of it, the water did have a snaky smell.

Anyway, publishing dead-snake photos in country newspapers has been a tradition, at least here in Texas, for more than a half-century, according to my research. The usual pose is holding the dead reptile by the tail, allowing the reader to judge its length by comparing it to the grinning man (it’s always a man; women have better sense than to be photographed with a dead snake) standing on the sidewalk in front of the newspaper office — in Bastrop, La Grange, Diboll or Cuero. It is rare the guy drapes the dead snake around his neck, which is why the Diboll photo caught my eye.

Companions to the dead-snake photo still in play today are dead-deer photos. The opening day of deer season, back when I was a young editor, meant I would hang around the office on opening day — Saturday morning — waiting for folks to come by with a dead deer strapped to their pickup hoods. The hunter would haul the blood-stained carcass off the hood and pose for me to take the picture. This is still a common practice in community newspapers. I once worked for a fellow who had been transplanted from the big city and wanted to ban dead-deer photos from the paper, arguing (correctly) that they were tacky. I agreed but pointed out we weren’t exactly setting the world on fire when it came to building circulation and best not rile the deer-hunting segment of our readership. He relented.

My late mentor, Sam Malone, who founded the San Augustine Rambler, which I ran and owned for five years in the 1980s, epitomized the country editor. He had a bottle of Evan Williams bourbon in the desk drawer, a loaded 12-gauge in the corner, and a cigar sticking out of the side of his mouth each waking hour. Sam fought as a Marine in Guadalcanal and feared nothing. But he drew the line at taking photos of dead snakes. He told folks who called in, wanting to bring in the latest dead rattler or water moccasin: “Either bring that rascal in alive or forget about it. I only take pictures of live snakes.”

Sam did take photos of dead deer, though. I guess requiring folks to bring a live 12-point buck into town was asking a bit much.

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