Uh oh...
It appears that you're using a severely outdated version of Safari on Windows. Many features won't work correctly, and functionality can't be guaranteed. Please try viewing this website in Edge, Mozilla, Chrome, or another modern browser. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused!
Read More about this safari issue.The Doctor, the Snake and the Stork – The Story Behind Arkansas-Made Pillstrom Tongs
If I told you I had a story about a doctor, a snake and a stork, you’d probably think I was setting you up for a punchline. It sounds like the beginning of a cheesy joke you’ve heard a thousand times before. But this one’s real. It’s the story behind Pillstrom Tongs, a company that just celebrated 72 years in business and got its start in a way you probably wouldn’t expect.
In the early 1950s, Dr. Lawrence “Larry” Pillstrom was in medical school, on his way to becoming an OB-GYN. He had a heart for serving others and felt called to medicine to help people. But his path wasn’t exactly typical. Having grown up in the Ozarks, he was no stranger to snakes, and that familiarity turned into a deeper interest. Alongside his medical training, he studied herpetology, eventually focusing his dissertation on snakes and their role in medicine.
That research wasn’t just theoretical. Larry was out in the field collecting snakes and milking venom for study. If you’ve ever come across one of the six species of venomous snakes in Arkansas, you know you don’t want to get too close to the bitey end. If he was going to care for patients, he couldn’t afford to spend time recovering from a snakebite. So, like a lot of good ideas, his came out of necessity. He set out to design a tool that would make it safer to catch and handle venomous snakes without harming them or himself.
So where does the stork come in? We’ll get there. But first, it’s worth taking a closer look at the invention that started it all.
Knowing that handling snakes put him at a higher risk of being bitten, Dr. Pillstrom needed a safer way to collect his specimens. In the 1950s, herpetologists often used a stick and a rope to hold the snake by the neck, just behind its head. It wasn’t fancy, was hard to manage one-handed and wasn’t always reliable. With a broomstick, an old refrigerator coil spring and a bit of ingenuity, Pillstrom designed the prototype of what would become the Pillstrom Tongs.
Dr. Pillstrom’s design wasn’t just a lucky idea that happened to work. As a scientist, he paid attention to the world around him and noted what was working in the natural world. As an OB-GYN, he would have been well aware of the old story of the stork delivering babies, a bit of folklore that paints the bird as a gentle carrier, trusted to transport something precious without harm.
Out in the field, Dr. Pillstrom was focused on observation. He often saw wood storks around the ponds and wetlands where he collected snakes. Storks regularly picked up snakes in their long, curved beaks and carried them back to their nests with surprising control. They could hang on tightly without crushing the snake.
When he designed the gripping end of his tongs, he modeled it after the shape and function of a stork’s beak, creating a tool that could securely hold a snake while minimizing injury. In a way, it brought the science and the story together. A tool inspired by a bird known for carrying something (a snake or a baby) safely from one place to another.
Dr. Pillstrom’s design worked; he was awarded a patent in 1957, and he began selling his tongs by mail order. Over time, the tool made its way into universities, wildlife agencies, and research programs across the country. But success didn’t look like overnight wealth or a booming factory. Like many practical inventions, it grew steadily and quietly. There were setbacks along the way, including copycat versions that tried to mimic the design. Even so, none built the same reputation for reliability or matched the lifetime guarantee that became a hallmark of Pillstrom Tongs.
For Dr. Larry Pillstrom, the tongs were never the main event. A Naval Commander and physician, he balanced a life of service on multiple fronts. He stayed focused on his medical career, building tongs in his spare time and filling orders as they came in. It wasn’t until he retired in the 1980s that he really leaned into the business side of things. And even then, it wasn’t flashy. He took a hands-on approach, reaching out to universities, zoos, aquariums, and wildlife professionals, often the same way a door-to-door salesman might, demonstrating his tongs and letting the design speak for itself.
Dr. Larry Pillstrom, Larry Pillstrom and Scott Pillstrom – Three generations of Pillstrom Tongs.
Throughout the company’s 72-year history, they’ve likely missed out on some business simply because they chose not to chase it. Instead of pouring money into advertising, they’ve relied on word of mouth and the ingenuity of the product itself. Today, Pillstrom Tongs is a third-generation company run by Scott Pillstrom, Larry’s grandson. And in a time when so much is mass-produced, there’s something remarkable about this detail. Every single set of Pillstrom tongs has been handmade by a member of the Pillstrom family, right here in Arkansas.
To learn more about Pillstrom Tongs, visit them online or on Facebook.
Photos courtesy of the Pillstrom Family.
We do the work.
You check your email.
Sign up for our weekly e-news.
Get stories sent straight to your inbox!
Like this story? Read more from Julie Kohl
Hiking in Arkansas doesn’t look the same for everyone, and that’s the...
I fell in love with camping because I liked getting away from it all....
Over the past year, nature journaling has become one of my favorite ways...
Join the Conversation
Leave a Comment