Springfield, Missouri - Home of the real life God Darn Cobra Kang Scare (1953)

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In Missouri, a garden hoe is the best tool for killing cobras. In the summer of 1953, Roland Parrish was working in his front yard, when a long black snake raised its head and spread its hood. One swift swipe with the hoe and the snake was dead. A week later, Roland’s neighbor Wesley saw his bulldog attack a snake in the bushes, so he rushed out pulled the animals apart, then grabbed his own garden hoe and bashed the snake. Wesley called the Springfield police, who were baffled by the strange reptile. In the end it was Herbert, the eighth grade science teacher, who identified the snake as Naja naja—a deadly Indian cobra. With that lead, the police paid a visit to the Mowrer Animal Company on Route 66, but the pet shop owner denied that any of his animals were missing.

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A week later, when another cobra was killed with a hoe in someone’s front yard, the city of Springfield went into panic. Suddenly, the townspeople were on the offensive. One man spotted a snake on the road, and smashed it with a car jack before running it over repeatedly. And when her own daughter told her that a snake had just gone into the garage, Mrs. McCoy brandished a hoe, bravely entered and killed the snake. Throughout early September, the snakes kept popping up (literally). When Mr. Stockton saw one slithering in his yard, he threw a rock at it, chasing it into his crawlspace. The police first tried trapping the cobra, then exploded a canister of tear gas under the house. When the snake finally crawled out, the policeman fired off every bullet in his barrel—and missed—before Mr. Stockton stepped in with a hoe and dispatched the snake.

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A month after the first exotic snake was killed, LIFE magazine published a story on “The Big Ozark Cobra Hunt”, while the local hospital ordered enough cobra anti-venom to treat the police force and any unlucky citizens who happened to get bit. Luckily, nobody did—not even when one police unit ran over a cobra but failed to kill it. The snake struck the car with his fangs repeatedly, but in the end, met his end with a rock. Fearful that hundreds of deadly cobras still remained lurking about town, the City Health Director hired a snake charmer from Florida who broadcast flute music from the back of a truck as it drove through town. Coincidentally (?), two cobras emerged from beneath the Springfield Pickle Works, and were killed—with a hoe. All in all, eleven cobras were discovered and dispatched

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