The Boll Weevil Monument

This passage is about an insect that helped change the farming industry in Alabama.

Lexile Level: 830L

Categories: History Animals & Nature

Do you know that there is a statue in the United States that honors an insect? This statue is in downtown Enterprise, Alabama. It honors the boll weevil, an insect not even one inch long. Boll weevils came into the United States from Mexico in 1892. By 1916, this beetle was eating up cotton crops in a lot of states. The problem was that many farmers in the South grew only cotton. The people of Coffee County in Alabama knew that they had to start growing other plants. The farmers planted crops like peanuts, and the farmers started to make money again. They decided to put up a statue of the boll weevil because its arrival had made them change. This change was good. Cotton was no longer their only source of money. The statue helped remind them of this tiny insect and the big change it made in their lives.