time capsule and to learn the fate of the horned toad. Many spectators had traveled more than 25 miles to be present, and hundreds thronged around the makeshift fence that encircled the old courthouse. At exactly four o'clock on Saturday, February 18, 1928, a live horned lizard was allegedly produced from within the time capsule in front of the overly-excited audience. Newspaperman Boyce House recalled the chaotic scene: Within days, national newspaper chains reported the discovery of the entombed lizard on their front pages. The New York Times reported the event on its front page with the declarative headline: "Toad Alive After 31 Years Sealed in Texas Cornerstone". The Times article credulously reported: Following these newspaper reports, zoologists and other scientists began a public debate over whether a Texas horned toad could survive for such an extended period of time without water, sunlight or oxygen. Dr. Raymond L. Ditmars, curator of mammals and reptiles at the Bronx Zoo, declared the alleged survival of the entombed lizard in Eastland, Texas, to be "utterly impossible." In contrast, preeminent naturalist William T. Hornaday, the curator of the New York Zoological Gardens, asserted "that the incident was possible⁠—and gave an instance from his own experience in Ceylon." Indifferent to this scientific debate, Eastland locals instead ascribed the horned toad's "miraculous" survival for thirty-one years to the presence of the Bible in the time capsule. National fame Due to the extensive media coverage, Ol' Rip became a national celebrity. The docile lizard was transported to Dallas, Texas, for public exhibition by Will Wood, the same individual who purportedly found the specimen as a boy in 1897. After a public outcry by Eastland inhabitants and profit-hungry businessmen over the removal of the famous creature from their otherwise nondescript and insignificant town, Wood returned Ol' Rip to Eastland. Dallas exhibitors promptly sued Wood for $6,000 for alleged breach of contract. After this incident, Ol' Rip went on a national tour, and forty thousand spectators viewed him at the Zoological Gardens in St. Louis, Missouri. Later that same year in New York City, motion pictures were produced with Will Wood introducing Ol' Rip, and "a bug-catcher was paid 50 cents each for insects that the frog devoured to please the camera man." The peak of Rip's fame occurred in May 1928 when, during his national tour, the lizard was transported to Washington, D.C. where Texas Senator Earle Bradford