Apelt Armadillo Farm, Charles Apelt, and Martha Apelt black plaque

Center Point, TX, United States

Apelt Armadillo Farm. In the late 1890s, Charles Apelt (1862-1944) opened a unique commercial enterprise at this site. Apelt, a German immigrant came to Comfort in 1887 and worked as a farmer. Here he encountered the armadillo, an animal native to the Americas, and began to develop a commercial use

for the mammal’s hard shell. Utilizing the nine-banded variety (Dasypus Novemcinctus) he soon opened the Armadillo Basket Factory. The novelty armadillo basket was a quick success; within its first si

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