The feared entity we know today as the Texas Department of Criminal Justice began in 1848 with the Walls Unit in Huntsville, Texas.
With as robust and mighty as the Texas prison system has become, you’d be hard-pressed to think of anything that could throw a wrench in the Lone Star state’s most intimidating administration.
But, consider the bat.
The Only Foe of TDCJ
For nearly two decades, a colony of 750,000 bats have been the bane of TDCJ’s existence.
Directly across from the Huntsville unit, there is a dilapidated cotton warehouse that was badly damaged by a fire and condemned. Prison officials have had the warehouse on their “must demolish” list, but that can’t happen until the hundreds of thousands of bats that have made it their roosting place can be coaxed out…