Master for Webs

Folks in the community of Viola, Minnesota mark the 125th anniversary of the original Viola Gopher Count on June 17th, 1999. It was on that date in 1874 that Violans first took to their fields and tried to capture every one of those pesky rodents whose burrowing and munching was damaging the crops. The 1999 Viola Gopher Count takes the form of a community festival. Our take on the action involves burrowing into our books and digging up some dirt about the pugnacious critters.

For starters, no one knows exactly how the thickset rodents, native to North and Central America, came by their name. According to one theory, gopher is a shortening of me gopher. According to another theory, the word comes from gaufre ("honeycomb"