Texans don’t think a Pennsylvania groundhog ought to predict our weather. Fourteen years ago, Terry Boothe called T by friends and members of the “Benevolent Knights of the Raccoon” (BKR). Decided an Armadillo by the name of “Bee Cave Bob” might do a better job of predicting when spring would arrive in the hill country. They chose the armadillo because they couldn’t catch a raccoon. The raccoon you see is the mascot of the BKR, but the Armadillo is the official animal of Texas.
The West Pole at Bee Cave was the venue chosen to celebrate Armadillo Day. The site of the actual pole is erected on Boothe’s property on the Little Barton Creek, near the Galleria. There the 98 th Meridian runs through his property. Texas author, Walter Prescott Webb, a Texas Historian of great stature, wrote that the “west began in the Texas Hill Country at the 98 th Meridian.” T Boothe and friends surmised there was a North and South pole and there ought to be a West Pole. They took it up with the Texas Legislature in 2007. It was resolved Boothe’s property on the 98 th Meridian was in fact the West Pole.
T's office is an 1869 ranch house a few yards from the marker, his Texas size man-cave behind the house. Tomorrow at noon a hundred or so Texans will meet by the pole to witness Bee Cave Bob’s annual prediction for spring.
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