Washingtons Headquarters State Historic Site

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This is exactly what it looks like: a basket made from an armadillo shell! Unusual baskets like this one were introduced at the 1902 World's Fair in New York City by an armadillo farmer from Texas named Charles Apelt. At a particularly desperate time, Apelt, a young German immigrant struggling to survive, killed and ate an armadillo. He noticed the basket-like shape of the armadillo shell, which partially curled when its meat was removed. A fad was born, and Apelt became quite rich fashioning baskets out of armadillo shells. Sadly, his thriving business nearly eliminated armadillos from that region of Texas.

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This is exactly what it looks like: a basket made from an armadillo shell! Unusual baskets like this one were introduced at the 1902 World's Fair in New York City by an armadillo farmer from Texas named Charles Apelt. At a particularly desperate time, Apelt, a young German immigrant struggling to survive, killed and ate an armadillo. He noticed the basket-like shape of the armadillo shell, which partially curled when its meat was removed. A fad was born, and Apelt became quite rich fashioning baskets out of armadillo shells. Sadly, his thriving business nearly eliminated armadillos from that region of Texas.