If you had your photo taken in the Den of Death during the 2008 snake hunt your pictures should be up by the end of the week. I’ve got a ton of photos to get through as well as a lot of video.

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Over the years a number of posters and flyers have been produced to promote the annual Okeene Diamondback Rattlesnake hunt. Likewise, a number of different certificates were awarded to people for various reasons, some more dubious than others.

However, they all provide information about how the rattlesnake hunt was promoted over the years and are all the more interesting for this fact alone.

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This article was originally published in Vol. X, No. 2 Spring 1960 of Oklahoma Today. The article was written by John Rochelle and the photos were by C. Faye Bennett. It includes a “slightly” different version of the Joe Durham snakes in a plane story.

SPORTSMEN THROUGH THE AGES have hunted lions, leopards, tigers, and other vicious wild beasts. Now they have added rattlesnakes. Okeene puts on an annual rattlesnake hunt that is fast climbing into high favor with sportsmen throughout the nation. Since weather determines the activity of the snakes, and since they must be active-but not too active-the exact date has to be set each spring. Most years it falls on the Sunday before or the Sunday after Easter.

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The following story appeared in Joe Durhams entry in Blue Skies and Prairie and is well worth reading. I have no idea about how true it is but it is rather funny even if it was a potentially deadly situation.

Seems as if Joe and a fellow named L. V. Irwin were given the job of mapping the best areas for their fellow snake hunters to look for rattlers during Okeene’s upcoming Rattlesnake Roundup. Joe had never been snake hunting with Irwin, and Irwin had never been flying with Joe, so they were both going a lot on faith. It being April, the roads were muddy, so Joe and Irwin decided to fly out to Salt Creek Canyon, a spot known for good snake hunting. When they got to the airport, they found only one plane available, an old homebuilt Stewart biplane with a 90-horse Gypsy engine. A slight drawback like that doesn’t discourage avid snake hunters, however, so Joe cranked it up and they took off.

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Neither the original date of this article or the publication it appeared in are known although it obviously came from Associated Press and may have been published in the Kansas City Star. However, you have to wonder about some people and their reasons for buying snakes!

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -
To cook it, to breed it, to make a pet out of it, or to pit it in a fight against another rattlesnake, a chicken or a bear.

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