The Great Indianapolis Squirrel Attack Of 1822

Just six years remain until the 200th anniversary of the greatest invasion ever faced by Indianapolis residents, and I'm not talking about the time they over-nighted the Colts to Indianapolis.

Now the details of the story are sketchy at best. In an article that starts out with invading armies of squirrels and ends with "birds I spotted near my house", you have to withhold some judgement.

So I researched this a little bit further and found only two brief mentions of fluffy-tailed spawns of lucifer invading downtown Indy.

As the story is told, not long after settlers first arrived to build the settlement of Indianapolis farms were overran with wildlife. The area was largely unpopulated, so it was probably referred to as "Dave's Farm" and not so much "Indianapolis", yet.

Deer and squirrels are an annoyance to any modern backyard gardener, so you can imagine the damage those animals could do to a farm in large enough numbers. That was the situation that the early farmers had to deal with. Large groups of squirrels eating everything in sight in that slightly adorable way.

As the story continues, the early residents of Indianapolis kept themselves busy trying to control the population of squirrels. One resident mentioned in the story boasted about killing over 200 squirrels in one day. Try that now and wait for the wave of judgment to come through your social media pages.

Thanks to the efforts of those brave Hoosiers, our state has not experienced a squirrel attack in close to 200 years. However, we should never let our guard down.