A monument in Enterprise, Alabama, dedicated to a beetle that tanked its town's economy by devastating its cotton crops.
The Boll Weevil Monument, erected in 1919, stands proudly in downtown Enterprise as "the world's first monument built to honor an agricultural pest." The 13-foot-tall statue features a classical female figure triumphantly holding aloft a trophy topped with an oversized boll weevil, looking for all the world like she's just won first place in history's most peculiar beauty pageant.
When the Mexican boll weevil invaded Alabama in 1915 and ruined the region's cotton crops by 1918, local farmer H.M. Sessions saw opportunity in catastrophe. Instead of admitting defeat, he convinced his neighbors to switch to peanut farming. The gamble paid off spectacularly, bringing unprecedented prosperity to the region.
The monument's base bears this remarkably optimistic inscription: "In profound appreciation of the Boll Weevil and what it has done as the herald of prosperity this monument was erected by the citizens of Enterprise."
Fun fact: The original boll weevil on top of the monument has been stolen so many times that the city finally replaced the entire statue with a polymer-resin replica in 1998.
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• Scientists cook with bug butter made from insects
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