Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day!

I actually spend a good amount of time watching the squirrels in my yard as they race around, chase each other, climb up and down trees and run past my supposedly squirrel-proof garden fence as if it’s not even there.

If you really want to enjoy and appreciate squirrels, there’s a town in Kansas where black squirrels are number one.

It’s the law.

This is Marysville, in northeastern Kansas.

The official (human) population is around 3,400.

In its earliest days, the area was known as the first stop for riders on the Pony Express as they went west from Missouri.

Marysville might have called itself the Pony Express city, except that in the early 20th Century it became home to a growing, thriving colony of black squirrels.

One common story says that the squirrels had come through town as a sideshow attraction for a traveling circus in 1912, and that a local youngster opened up their cage and set them free in a local park.

Another version says they actually came as part of a reunion of the Grand Army of the Republic, and there’s another story that says there were black squirrels living in the area for more than a century before people started noticing how many there were.

Black squirrels aren’t the only type of squirrel in Marysville, but they’re the most popular.

Since 1972, the black squirrel has been the community’s official mascot, and as such they have special protections.

A local ordinance says they’re allowed to trespass on any city land, they don’t have to follow the traffic laws and they have “the right of first choice to all black walnuts growing within the city.”

Anyone who harms a black squirrel in the Black Squirrel City can face stiff fines or even imprisonment.

And they do enforce it: in 1973, authorities charged a former resident who tried to bring a breeding pair to New Mexico with kidnapping!

In 1988, Marysville approved an official black squirrel anthem, and in 2018, they started installing fiberglass squirrel statues, decorated by local artists, all over downtown.

There are more than 50 of them now, and if you post photos of the squirrel statues on social media, they ask that you use the hashtag #Nuts4Marysville.

If you’re anywhere near Cedar Creek, Texas, you might want to celebrate National Squirrel Appreciation Day by visiting Ms. Pearl.

She’s a 14 foot tall squirrel statue holding a giant pecan, since there’s a pecan pie place close by.

Ms. Pearl is the largest squirrel statue in the world, which is… nuts.

From circus attraction to protected mascot to art project: How black squirrels took over a small Kansas town (Roadtrippers)

Ms. Pearl (Atlas Obscura)

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Photo by John Carrel via Flickr/Creative Commons