On this day in Florida history - May 22, 1931: Arcadia company starts selling canned rattlesnake

On May 22, 1931, canned rattlesnake meat first went on sale in Florida. From the article:

"May 22, 1931 - Arcadia company starts selling canned rattlesnake
"Weird Florida" may be a popular meme today, but many people realized Florida was weird a long time ago. How else to explain the widespread coverage northern newspapers gave to George Kenneth End and his canned rattlesnake business?

End moved to Arcadia from Sheboygan, Wis., and reportedly was not successful raising vegetables on his scrubby farm.

A pork canning plant also failed, and End noticed his land was producing an abundance of one particular crop -- rattlesnakes. One day he and his sons became curious about what the snakes might taste like, and Mrs. End was up to the task of frying the meat.

You guessed it -- rattlesnake tastes like chicken, well, blended with quail.

George Kenneth End's rattlesnake cannery in Arcadia opened in 1931. In 1940, it produced 15,000 cans at $1.25 a can. Each snake could be harvasted for three cans of meat.
The experiment, along with a successful test-feeding at a veterans' gathering, encouraged End to form the Floridian Products Co. and by 1940 the clan was shipping 15,000 cans annually at $1.25 a can.

Rattlesnake became a delicacy served in swank restaurants in New York and Los Angeles.

Meat from a single snake filled only three 5 oz. tins, leaving a lot of rattlesnake leftovers. So End started marketing shoes, belts and jackets to consumers; venom to laboratories; and fat and crystallized gall to pharmaceuticals.

End's venture ended in 1943 after he died from a bite by one of his snakes. His plant ceased operation and was purchased by herpatologist Ross Allen, who moved it next to his venom lab in Silver Springs and began selling the meat under his own name, alongside his alligator soup."