Enterprise, Alabama: Boll Weevil Monument

Swarms of weevils ate the cotton crop, forcing Enterprise to agriculturally diversify. The grateful town erected a monument to the bug.

The Boll Weevil Monument, a classical statue of a woman holding a large version of the insect over her head, is smack dab in the middle of town, right in the center of Main Street. Be sure to spend the night at the Boll Weevil Inn, 305 South Main St., just a few blocks down the road.

Two bored-out-of-their-skulls teens were arrested for the theft and burial of the Boll Weevil statue in Enterprise, Alabama. The statue, a tribute to the nuisance insect that sparked an agricultural rebirth in the region, was recovered from a shallow grave last week.

The official story is that a bad swarm of boll weevils came and destroyed the cotton crop one year and the towns people decided to grow other crops and thus avoid another economic disaster.

The better story is that in 1919 they were building the new main street in Enterprise and had the road all torn up, and were putting in a Statue of Lady Liberty or some other overdone statuary. Local folks got tired of answering the same question all the time, "Whatcha gonna put there?" One wit started saying it would be a monument to the boll weevil, and some traveling salesman got told this and went back to Montgomery and told a newspaper editor that this little hick town was putting up a monument to a boll weevil. So they did a big write-up, and of course the town couldn't back down, so they but up a nice monument to the boll weevil. The bronze plaque reads, "In profound appreciation of the Boll Weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity, this monument is erected by the citizens of Enterprise -- December 11, 1919.

There is a monument to the" pest" the Boll Weevil; it ravaged the cotton crop years ago, and prompted farmers to grow peanuts instead!! It is rather unusual! The monument includes a fountain, and night lights right in the middle of "Main Street"!