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We open in darkness with a dubious disclaimer, warning the viewer that what we are about to see is based on a true story, with the majority of the people in the picture actually portraying themselves in the interest of authenticity and, in most cases, at the actual location which spawned these forthcoming testimonials.
And then, when the camera suddenly comes to life, giving us a sweeping pan of some water-logged marsh, all we hear are the ambient noises of these wetlands; insects, nutrias, frogs and lots of birds, doing what insects, nutrias, frogs and lots of birds do.
But as our serene tour of nature continues, an ominous wind starts to blow; then, this natural, almost-droning animal symphony is shattered by a strange, guttural howl that doesn't really fit any of these indigenous critters, bringing all other noise to an abrupt stop. Was that the wind?
The howling sounds again, scaring all the other animals off. No. That was definitely not the wind.
Cut to a young boy, running hell-bent for the horizon through a sea of tall grass, away from the marshes and those strange and terrible noises. He pauses to look back and scan the tree line, keeping a watchful eye out for something. But, he sees nothing. Yet.
More running, then, as the boy runs, and runs, and runs, until finally making the main road and a filling station, where he finds the man he’s been looking for, Willie Smith, gabbing with a few other locals.
Told he was sent by his mom to get help because that "wild man" was prowling around their house again, Smith and the others laugh -- seems it’s the third time this week the boy’s mother has seen a “monster" lurking about their property.
This lack of credence and credulity would also probably explain why there is no sense of concern or urgency when they just send the messenger back home, with the barest of notions of checking out their place sometime tomorrow.
With that, the boy shrugs and beats feet back the way he came, racing the setting sun to get home before dark. He has to. And though he does make it back in time, barely, before he can get inside the house proper, the boy hears those primal screams again.
And as those unnatural sounds reverberate through the surrounding bogs and marshes, an older narrator finally chimes in, claiming to be that boy, and how this was his first encounter with the legendary Fouke Monster, a Sasquatch like creature, back when he was just seven years old.
And this harrowing encounter scared him then, and it still scares him to this very day as the narrator (Stierman) continues, giving us some background information on the area and the nickel tour of Fouke, Arkansas (circa 1972); a small agricultural community of about 300 people just south of Texarkana and about 50 miles north of Shreveport, Louisiana, which will be the setting of our crypto-zoological tale.
Surrounded by wetlands, creeks, and rivers that often flood and inundate the surrounding woods, this makes the area around Fouke almost impenetrable and unwilling to give up its mysteries. And that, our narrator ominously intones, explains why Fouke is a nice and peaceful place to live -- until the sun goes down…
Back in the late spring of 1971, it was a slow news day at the offices of The Texarkana Gazette. April had just given in to May and the inundating heat and humidity of the changing seasons was already establishing a foothold when reporter Jim Powell received a call one particular Sunday morning from his friend, Dave Hall.
Now, Hall was the news director at Texarkana's KTFS radio station, who had just received word that something odd was going on down the road apiece in the little town of Fouke. With nothing else to cover, both reporters followed the news trail to the old Crank homestead, about 8 miles south of Fouke just off U.S. Highway 71, whose house was currently rented by a Mr. Robert Ford.
When the reporters arrived, "Bobby" Ford and his wife, Elizabeth, were in the process of packing all of their belongings into a U-Haul, determined to vacate the area as soon as possible. Obviously, the family was agitated and scared. But of what? And why? Well, to answer, that’s when this breaking news story took a very strange and somewhat sinister turn.
"I'm not staying here anymore unless they kill that thing," Elizabeth told Powell.
Now, Bobby and Elizabeth Ford had only moved into the old secluded Crank house with their children just five days prior to this inciting incident, where they shared occupancy with Ford’s brother, Don Ford, his wife Patricia, their children, and a visiting family friend, Charles Taylor.
Try as I might, I could never get a solid tally on the number of the Ford siblings’ children, but did verify there were five adults staying in the house at the time. Regardless, according to the story Powell would later file and be published in The Texarkana Gazette (Monday, May 3, 1971), whatever happened to the Fords actually began a few days prior.
As reported by Powell, on Wednesday, April 28, while the men were away at work, their wives heard something big prowling around on the porch, who ignored their queries, but this went no further. But two nights later, on Friday, April 30, whatever it was had returned -- only this time, further testimony said it tried to break into the house!
“I saw the curtain moving on the front window and a hand sticking through it,” Elizabeth told Powell. “At first I thought it was a bear's paw but it didn't look like that. It had heavy hair all over it and it had claws.” Also of note, “I could see its eyes,” she said. “They looked like coals of fire, real red. It didn't make any noise -- except you could hear it breathing."
Shouting for the menfolk, by the time they mobilized the intruder had once more disappeared and a search of the grounds found no trace of it. But turns out this was all just a preamble for a true night of terror when this nocturnal visitor returned yet again the following night!
As the clock crept past midnight on Saturday and into Sunday morning, the unknown creature once again tried to gain entrance into the house -- only this time, the men were armed and ready for it.
Bobby Ford reported they spotted the creature in the backyard, catching it in a pool of illumination from a flashlight. “We shot at it several times,” said Ford, sure they had hit the thing, but it would not fall. When it disappeared again, they phoned the Miller County Sheriff's Department, who dispatched Constable Ernest Walraven to the farmhouse.
Walraven arrived on scene at about 12:35 am on Sunday, May 2, according to Powell, who then took a statement and searched the area. "I looked through the surrounding fields and woods for about an hour,” said Walraven, but he didn’t really find anything in the dark.
As things quieted down, and figuring some kind of wildcat was responsible, before he left, Walraven lent the Fords his shotgun and a better flashlight, as they intended to keep a vigil for the rest of the night, and said to call if the “animal” came back again. It did. And this time, it allegedly kicked the back door in before it fled.
Here, the Ford brothers and Taylor shot at it once more, seven times in total. This time, their target appeared to get hit as it disappeared back into the trees. Said Don Ford, “We waited on the porch and then saw the thing closer to the house. We shot again and thought we saw it fall.”
With that, the three men left the house and hastily pursued their target to check on the carcass and finally discover just what in the hell it was they’d been shooting at all night. Like his wife, at first, “I thought it was a bear,” said Bobby Ford, “but it runs upright and moves real fast.”
As they searched for a blood trail, none could be found. But they’d been suckered all along, as the thing had circled back to the house, where their families were left undefended.
“About that time we heard the women screaming,” said Don Ford, “and Bobby went back.”
"I was walking the rungs of a ladder to get up on the [back] porch when the thing grabbed me,” said Bobby Ford. “I felt a hairy arm come over my shoulder and the next thing I knew we were on the ground. The only thing I could think about was to get out of there. The thing was breathing real hard and his eyes were about the size of a half dollar and real red.”
After a brief struggle, "I finally broke away and ran around the house and through the front door,” said Ford. “I was moving so fast I didn't stop to open the door. I just ran through it.”
"We heard Bobby shouting and by the time we got there everything was over,” said Don Ford. “We didn't see a thing." Added an exasperated Bobby, “I don't know where he went."
Bobby Ford would later describe the creature that attacked him to Powell, saying it was at least seven feet tall and about three feet wide, shaped like a man, but covered in long brown hair.
After this harrowing close encounter with the, hell, whatever it was, the besieged house was quickly abandoned and the entire Ford clan drove into Texarkana and St. Michael’s Hospital, where Bobby Ford was treated for “minor abrasions and mild shock” before he was released.
The family then contacted Walraven again and related what had happened in the interim. He returned to the house with several other constables, and remained there until 5am. Nothing else happened.
But! As the sun came up, some tangible evidence was revealed: the toppled door; a few claw-marks in the exterior woodwork of the porch; several pieces of tin violently torn from the foundation; a punctured window screen; and some broken tree limbs and trampled saplings. But the most curious thing were some elongated, three-toed footprints found at the scene.
Walraven later theorized that “whatever kind of animal it was, it was making its den under the house until the Fords moved in.”
But in the end, "Members of my department searched the area but didn't find a thing,” said Miller County Sheriff Leslie Greer. “I don't know what it could've been."
"We plan to stay here tonight and see if we can get the thing if it returns," said Don Ford. But his brother and sister-in-law already had enough excitement. "I've had it here,” said Ford. “I'm going back to Ashdown."
Walraven added that several years prior, residents of Jonesville, about six miles southwest of Fouke, and not very far from the Crank property, also reported seeing a "hairy monster" in the area. "Several persons saw the thing and shot at it, some from close range. They said nothing seemed to stop it. They described it as being about seven feet tall and looking just like a naked man covered with brown hair," Walraven said.
The incident also stirred up memories of previous close encounters with the unknown. As Norman Richardson observed in The Shreveport Times (May 4, 1971), “Is old ‘IT’ roaming around and doing his thing again? IT, of course, is the reportedly shy monster which has been spotted off-and-on for some 20 years in various spots from Jefferson, Texas, to Fouke, Arkansas.”
Some are quick to ridicule the idea of a monster, said Richardson, while others adopted a ‘maybe so’ attitude, and there are those who don’t even want to know. “But to Bobby Ford of Fouke, the thing is alive and well regardless of what anyone says about monsters being only in fairy tales.”
Based on multiple witness statements, Richardson would go on to describe “Hairy” as large, heavy set, and at least seven feet tall; eyes red as fire; covered in hair; with long arms ending in very sharp claws, “who got his kicks by simply scaring the daylights out of folks, sometimes chasing them for a bit before giving up, tearing up traps set for it, or just popping up from behind a bush, growling and then disappearing.”
But Richardson also noted how the monster had been laying low for at least the past six years, with the last notable sighting reported back in 1965, when Johnny Maples, a 13-year old boy, had a close encounter with Hairy -- or one of his cryptid kin.
Digging back into the records show several reported accounts of this incident. After a day of fishing, Maples was walking home along Farm Road 1343 near Lodi, Texas, which is about 50 miles southeast of Fouke. Along the way, he heard a menacing growl coming from some tall brush along the side of the road.
Maples later testified he then threw several rocks into the weeds at the offending animal, which resulted in something large and hairy emerging from the ditch, which quickly gave chase. “As I turned to run, the huge creature started climbing over a fence and started after me,” said Maples (The Shreveport Times, September 5, 1965). “After I had run for a long ways, one of the soles on my shoes came loose and I had to stop to take [them] off so I could run faster.”
Luckily, Maples was able to outrun the monster, claiming he never looked back -- not even once, because he was too scared. And when he got home, his mother, identified as Mrs. John Maples, said, “He was in a near state of hysterics and the bottom of his feet were blistered from running so hard on the paved highway.”
Maples’ sighting was corroborated by an earlier reported encounter, when “a Negro boy reported ‘a big black thing roaming the woods’ several months prior.” Like the Fords, young Maples described the monster “as being very large and hairy,” but added “it had no hair on its face and hands, with long arms that hung down below its knees.”
As more sightings piled up, the creature was soon dubbed the Marion County Monster by the local press, whose first sighting dated way back to 1927, when it frightened a railway conductor during a fuel stop. At the time of the Maples encounter, it was believed the cryptid was inhabiting the area near the Old Foundry Cemetery on the outskirts of Lodi, where tracks were spotted and photographed.
However, unlike the prints found around the Ford house, the Marion County Monster had six toes and six fingers -- not three.
Regardless, concluded Richardson, “those who refuse to believe in monsters, those who do, and those who don’t want to know, either way, none can expect any help, obviously, from Hairy in finding out what it is, or isn’t, or maybe never was.”
Meanwhile, after the story broke, the Crank property was soon overrun by the curious. In his follow up article on May 4, 1971, for the Texarkana Gazette and Texarkana Daily News, Powell was already leaning into the notion that it wasn’t a monster at all but most likely a mountain lion that stalked the house. Nonetheless, it should be noted that Powell’s second article featured the first ever reference of the cryptid as the Fouke Monster.
"We think now it might have been a big cat, like a mountain lion or puma," Don Ford told Powell, while sitting on his porch watching people wander through his fields, who were “looking for a trace of the Fouke Monster.”
Powell reported that about 100 persons had been to the house on Monday, looking under the porch and in the fields. "I work nights and haven't been able to get any sleep today," said Ford.
But there wasn’t a whole lot to see. “There were some footprints or paw prints located Sunday, which residents could not identify,” reported The Shreveport Journal (May 4, 1971). “However, a rain early Monday morning washed the prints away before the sightseers arrived on the scene.”
And yet, still they came as the story went national. “Curious people prowl around the property during the day, looking for marks left by the creature,” reported Dala McKinsey of the Associated Press (Northwest Arkansas Times, May 7, 1971). “The Miller County Sheriff’s office has warned people repeatedly to stay away from the house. Law enforcement officials fear that groups of young men out hunting the monster will shoot each other.”
“We’re trying to get people to stay away,” Deputy H.L. Phillips told McKinsey. “The place is becoming a real traffic hazard.” Phillips also warned that anyone caught with a gun near the property would be arrested.
As for the big cat or mountain lion theory, Phillips said that while panthers did get as far north as Fouke, he thinks it was a cougar and concurred with Walraven that it was most likely making its den under the house before the Fords moved in.
By the end of that first week, Sheriff Greer, tired of all these trespassers disturbing the residents of his community, had issued a warning, stating that any so-called ‘monster hunters’ in the Fouke area “had better leave their guns and liquor at home.” (The Shreveport Journal, May 7, 1971.) And, “Anyone caught with a gun better have a more solid excuse than hunting.”
Also of note, the mysterious creature had not been seen since the Ford incident, but in the same article, constable Walraven revealed that a person living near the Fords reported hearing something “that sounded like a woman screaming,” and how these screams came from the same wooded area where the creature allegedly roamed.
Then, as the creature remained elusive and things died down a bit, this mass hysteria appeared to be all but over until May 22, 1971, when the creature was spotted yet again by a couple driving back to Texarkana when “a large hairy creature crossed U.S. 71 in front of their automobile” about two miles south of Fouke.
The car was occupied by D.C. Woods, his wife, Wilma, and a Mrs. R. H. Sedgrass, who were returning from Shreveport, Louisiana, around midnight, when this incident occurred.
"It was hunched over and running upright,” said Woods (Texarkana Daily News, May 24, 1971). “It had long dark hair and looked real large. It didn't look too tall, but I guess that's because it was bent over. It was swinging its arms kind of like a monkey does. It looked like a giant monkey in a way. It had dark long hair and I would guess it would weigh well over 200 pounds.”
Said Wilma Woods, "We were just awed. My husband turned to me after it crossed the road and asked me if I saw it, too. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me, but there it was." The article also noted when he first saw the creature in the headlights, Woods thought he was going to hit it. "It was really moving fast across the highway ... faster than a man. I thought we were going to hit it. The thing didn't act like it even noticed us. It didn't look at the car,” he said.
"It was just unbelievable what we saw,” said Wilma Woods. “I had been reading about the thing but thought it was just a hoax. Now I know it's true. It wasn't a bear."
As for Mrs. Sedgrass, who was riding in the back seat, she added, "I heard them say they saw the thing and glanced up. All I saw was a large shadow as it entered the woods to our right. I don't know what it was, but it was something big. Some people don't think there is anything to (the monster) but I do."
But then, about three weeks later, the identity of the mystery creature appeared to be finally resolved. On June 13, 1971, Deputy Phillips and volunteer Gary Beard were patrolling on Sugar Hill Road (off U.S. Highway 71 north), when something darted onto the road before them, too. Said Phillips, “ A darn big black panther walked out in front of us.” (The Shreveport Journal, June 14, 1971.)
Phillips would describe the animal as six feet long, some three feet high at the shoulders, and coal black [in color]. He said, “The animal leaped a wide ditch in one stride and disappeared into the woods.”
(Image courtesy of Naturetrek.co.)
Though rare in that area, with this official sighting of the big cat, the Miller County Sheriff’s department felt that this solved the mystery. And this panther was most likely “the monster” that attacked the Fords and had been sighted by the Woods (and others) in and around Fouke these past few weeks. Case closed.
Well, it was closed for about 12 hours, as the very next day came word that more substantial proof of the cryptid's existence was found embedded in a soybean field about three miles southeast of Fouke.
According to a report in the Shreveport Journal (June 15, 1971), “Yother Kennedy, a local farmer, was plowing late last Wednesday evening when he heard strange noises. He said he went to his home, got his gun and returned to the area but could find nothing.”
Then, on the following Sunday, Kennedy returned to the field and found several tracks, which he described “as some 13.5 inches in length with three toes, and the tracks showed a stride of at least five feet. The prints were long and slender, measuring 4.5 inches across the front and three inches at the heel and appeared to be about a half-inch deep.”
Unlike the prints found around the Ford house that got washed away, these new prints were extensively photographed and several plaster casts were made as well. And with that, Miller County was once more caught up in Fouke Monster Fever, as yet again, just one day later, Powell reported that there was another sighting of the ape-like creature.
Seems that Sheriff Greer took a statement from Al Williams and A. L. Tipton, both residents of the rural community, who allegedly spotted the Fouke Monster as it "slouched" across a gravel road in front of their car early Tuesday about two miles south of Fouke. Only this one was considerably shorter.
"It appeared to be about three or four feet tall as it crouched over and walked across the road," said Tipton (Texarkana Gazette, June 16, 1971). Both men said they were close enough to see that the creature was either a small ape or a large monkey.
Sheriff Greer said he and several deputies, along with a select few residents of the area, attempted to set dogs on the trail of the creature, starting from where Williams and Tipton had their sighting. But, “The dogs refused to follow the trail,” said Willie Smith, one of those volunteers.
Thus, the whole thing was a washout because the dogs could not follow the scent trail. Not because they were too frightened, said Smith, but “it was too hot and the woods were too dry to hold a scent." Thus, the article ended with Powell reporting another attempt would be made if the weather cooled down or it rained.
"I feel like this creature that was seen Tuesday is the same creature that has been reportedly seen in this area since early May," said Greer. And so, the hunt for the Fouke Monster would continue.
Theories on what the creature could be were wide and varied. Some felt it might be a relation of Bigfoot (alias the Sasquatch), recently made famous by the Patterson-Gimlin footage that was captured in 1967. There was also a lot of scuttlebutt about a circus train wreck some 10 to 12 years ago between Hope and Fouke, with the running theory being the creature might be a gorilla or a chimpanzee that escaped from the wreckage.
(Editor’s Note: I spent an ungodly amount of time and effort sifting through the digital newspaper archives, looking for all reported train wrecks taking place between 1950 and 1965 in Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana that mentioned a circus but never could get it narrowed down properly. And while I cannot confirm such a crash did happen, this does not prove that such a crash did not happen.)
But Frank Schambagh, professor of archeology at Southern State College felt the creature was neither a Sasquatch or an ape but an elaborate hoax. After studying the photos of the soybean field prints, Schambagh told The Shreveport Journal (June 17, 1971), “The tracks were not human and did not look like anything belonging to the primate family. All the primates have five toes. Also the monkey family is not nocturnal and is like humans or daytime creatures.”
Schambagh also felt a primate could not survive a winter in this area’s climate. As for it being a Sasquatch or the Missing Link, he said, “There have never been primates native to North America, so that rules out anything that could have been left over from times past.” And in conclusion, Schambagh reiterated that the whole thing was most probably a hoax, and sincerely hoped no one would get hurt if these types of dangerous shenanigans continued.
But while “the skeptics were numerous and they openly scoffed, other residents were wary,” reported Jeff Holladay (The Daily Oklahoman, June 19, 1971). And ever since the attack on the Fords, “They shuttered windows and locked doors when nightfall came. Since then there have been several sightings. And officers are convinced it is no prank.”
“They all agree it's some kind of unidentified animal,” said Jerry Thomas, a Miller County deputy. He told Holladay, “I wouldn’t say it was a monster. It appears to be some member of the ape family.”
Thomas also reported that “people are not as upset as they were several months ago. No calves or dogs have been reported killed or maimed. And since he was spotted in a cornfield and his tracks were found in a soybean patch, we believe it’s a vegetarian.”
The black, hairy and ape-like creature was even seen “husking corn like it was eating a banana,” another witness told Thomas. Holladay also said several people have fired on the creature “with no positive results.” Ever since, Thomas says the creature has shied away from humans -- apparently very mindful of the shots which have been fired in its direction.
“There are thousands of heavily wooded acres in that area and he could hide out and not be seen by anyone,” said Thomas. “But some folks figure it's the dry weather that’s bringing him out to look for something to eat.”
"Evidently the creature is harmless, unless cornered," said Sheriff Greer (Texarkana Gazette, June 16, 1971). "We certainly don't want anyone to shoot the creature, since it does appear to be harmless. We'll try and track it again, and probably shoot it with a tranquilizer gun to capture it."
Raymond Scoggins, a resident of Texarkana, was the first to offer a reward of $200 for the creature’s safe capture. “I believe in the monster,” Scoggins told the AP (Northwest Arkansas Times, June 25, 1971). “I want to preserve it in a zoo or wherever it belongs. I want to discourage the killing of it.”
Local radio station KAAY out of Little Rock, Arkansas, offered a reward of $1090. (KAAY was 1090 on the AM dial.) Jack W. Lee, executive VP of Lin Broadcasting, announced, “Insomuch as the creature known as the Fouke Monster has proven to be a source of mental anguish for the people of Arkansas, KAAY sees it as a public service to the state to do all it can to alleviate this problem.”
To claim this reward, the creature needed to be alive and in good health and its genus and species confirmed by “well known authorities.” It would then become property of the station. Alas, this reward would go unclaimed and would officially expire on July 31, 1971.
Meanwhile, the Shreveport Times (June 29, 1971) reported that three men were arrested and had been charged with disturbing the peace after “allegedly inflicting scratches on each other in an attempt to make themselves look like victims of the monster.” Each was fined $60. And with that, Sheriff Greer once again issued a warning that all hoaxers and trespassers would be arrested and charged after several farmers complained that their crops were being damaged by these errant knights in search of a monster
Also looking to cash in, there was even talk of getting a federal grant through the Smithsonian Institute and the Center of Short Lived Phenomenon -- at least according to John Pitz, the executive director of the Ozarks’ Regional Commission.
And it wasn’t just for the Fouke Monster either, as there had also been recent sightings of another, “sea monster of sorts” haunting the White River, which pierces through the Ozark Mountains of northern Arkansas.
“It was over 40 feet long and weighed way over a ton and it looked like it could eat anything, anywhere, and at any time,” said eye-witness Ernest Dinks (The Tyler Courier-Times, October 17, 1971). But Cloyce Warren said the White River Monster “was only 30 feet long” and added “it had a spiny ridged backbone.” According to local native lore, the monster had been around for centuries. There were even a few tall tales where the monster sank a Union gunboat during the Civil War.
The latest sighting was reported anonymously that same June, where an unknown person phoned in a report to Mike Masterson of the Newport Daily News. According to Masterson (The Morning World, June 20, 1971), the witness reported he was standing on the bank of the White River just south of Newport when he saw “a creature the size of a boxcar thrashing in the river.”
The caller described the creature as being about the length of three or four pickup trucks and at least two yards across. “It didn’t really have scales, he said. “But from where I was standing on the shore, about 150 feet away, it looked as if the thing was peeling over, but it was a smooth type of skin or flesh.”
The witness said he first noticed the monster “when the water began to boil up about two or three feet high, then this huge form rolled up and over. I was scared, when I saw that thing rise up out of the river. I didn't see its head, but I didn’t have to; his body was enough to scare me bad.”
According to Pitz (The Baxter Bulletin, September 16, 1971), $160,000 was available yearly for the study of sudden and freak happenings. “Both Arkansas Monsters have been seen recently in their native habitats,” he said. “We at the Commission are interested in anything that might lead to the betterment of the Ozarks and these creatures could certainly be an asset to our economy.”
As I mentioned earlier, both the AP and UPI wire services picked up Powell’s newsflash on the Ford attack, and the tale of the Fouke Monster soon became a national sensation. And soon after, the little town of Fouke was indeed overrun by a cryptid-addled public, hoping to catch a glimpse of America's newest folk legend. But like its cousin the Sasquatch, the creature remained maddeningly elusive.
Now, it should also be noted that this recent rash of sightings weren't the first appearance of this creature. No. There had been sightings of the beast even way before 1965, and dated as far back as 1908; walking along a creek bed here, crossing the road there, slaughtering a few pigs now and again, and at least one documented case of the creature attacking someone while they were taking a crap in an outhouse.
With all the differing descriptions, and everyone looking for their 15-minutes, it’s hard not to write this whole thing off as just one big hoax that snowballed out of control. There were even rumors of a circulation war between several area newspapers that were bound and determined to keep the monster in the news. Who knows for sure.
But even as the fervor over these latest sightings died down, sometimes, usually at night, as the locals say, something big and hairy crawls out of the wetlands along the Boggy Creek and prowls the house-trailers and shotgun shacks around Fouke and its surrounding communities, growling and shrieking and making a general nuisance of itself.
Geographically speaking, Boggy Creek runs nearly the whole length of Miller County. A distributary of the Sulphur River, it runs a winding, serpentine course from the Texas border to the east, branching off into several other creeks -- Mill Creek, and Chicken Creek, cutting under Highway 71 and I-49 about a mile south of Fouke, through thick woodlands, but also through pastures and farmlands, expanding into several reuse irrigation pits along the way until it eventually comes to its headwaters just past the junction of Williams Road and the County 40 blacktop, near the border between Miller and neighboring Lafayette County.
And over the years since these sightings occurred near its occluded banks, a general description of this local legend solidified: tall, ape-like features, covered in long brown hair, three toes, three fingered claws, supernaturally fast, with fiery red eyes. But strangely enough, with over 100-years of sightings, unlike its other cryptid brethren, photos or film of the actual Fouke Monster, or Boggy Creek Monster, disputed or faked, range from rare to non-existent -- well, with one notable exception. Sort of.
See, one individual who also wanted to cash-in on and exploit this rash of sightings was Texarkana's very own Charles Bryant Pierce. Pierce was a local, as he grew up in the nearby town of Hampton, Arkansas, where he and his best friend, Harry Thomason, spent their youth making Super-8 home movies together.
Fascinated by the medium of motion pictures, Pierce decided to make this his profession. He landed his first job at the age of 19 as an art director for KTAL-TV in Shreveport in the mid 1960s, where he was soon promoted to weekend weatherman. And while serving in that capacity over the next 14 years, Pierce would also moonlight as Mayor Chuckles of Playville USA, who was the host of a local children’s cartoon show called The Laffalot Club.
Then, after bouncing around several other TV stations in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas, Pierce finally settled in Texarkana, bought himself a 16mm camera, and went into the advertising business, where he made industrial shorts and commercials for local businesses and eateries.
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Thomason, meanwhile, had pretty much followed the same career path but took it one step further by writing, directing, and producing his own feature; the paranormal thriller, Encounter With the Unknown (1972), which was filmed independently in and around Little Rock and made a tidy profit on the initial regional roll-out before being picked up by American National Enterprises and released nationally.
Inspired by his old friend’s success, Pierce felt he could shoot a movie locally, too, and also make some of that money. “I was always a John Ford fan and wanted to do a western,” said Pierce (The Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1976). And to those ends, “I asked this writer friend from Hollywood, who was visiting relatives in my town, if he would write a script for me.”
This writer was Earl C. Smith, who agreed, and, as the legend goes, Pierce went with Smith back to Hollywood to try and find financing, secure distribution, and round up some actors. But while driving down Sunset Boulevard, they spotted something odd -- but strangely familiar.
“I saw some hippies wearing these t-shirts walking along the street. On the shirts was written -- ‘Save the Fouke Monster,’” said Pierce in an interview with Lane Crockett for The Shreveport Journal (August 11, 1972). “So I started checking out how much publicity there had been about it.”
Pierce added the film was originally intended as an hour-long TV special, “But after more research there was enough to make a feature film.” Thus, the western was out and the local legend was in.
“Just the thought of a Bigfoot was enough to give people the willies back then,” Pierce later confessed to Jeff LeMaster (Arkansas-Democratic Gazette, May 18, 2008). It’s true. I was there, and lucidly remember being one of millions of Bigfoot-addled sentients back in the 1970s, devouring everything on the subject matter.
Even Bro’ Smith’s “Bigfoot” novelty song gave me a case of the drizzles. Sing it with me now, “Oh, Bigfoot’s comin’ gonna getcha gonna getcha, Bigfoot’s comin’ so you better watch out. Lock your doors and bolt your windows, Bigfoot’s on the prowl…”
Here, Fouke’s very own Bigfoot -- which Pierce affectionately dubbed “the Booger” -- would now be the focus of his first film, an ersatz nature documentary based in “fact.”
To finance the project, Pierce was all in and sold off his advertising business and managed to raise about $25,000; but he knew that wouldn’t be near enough. And when he started looking for investors, he turned to one of his biggest advertising clients: Ledwell and Son Enterprises.
An outfit out of Texarkana, Texas, the Ledwells had specialized in custom built trailers and flatbeds since the 1940s. And when Pierce approached the owner, Lloyd W. "Buddy" Ledwell, he made his pitch.
“I went to him and told him I wanted to do a movie,” said Pierce in an interview with John Wooley (Fangoria, August, 1997). As for the subject matter of said movie, Pierce told a curious Ledwell, “a no-nonsense, self-made man with a fondness for cowboy hats and boots and a low tolerance for tom-foolery,” that he wanted to make a picture about “the Booger that's jumpin’ on folks down the road there. [The one] that was in the papers every morning, you know, about the Fouke Monster and how it’d jumped on somebody else.”
Here, when an incredulous Ledwell asked Pierce if he actually believed such a thing existed, Pierce answered diplomatically, “Well, I don’t know if I believe it or not -- but it sure will make a good movie!”
Ledwell wasn’t completely sold on the idea at first but eventually came around and ponied up $100,000, which earned Ledwell an executive producer’s credit on the finished film under the banner of Pierce and Ledwell (P&L) Productions.
And so, in February, 1972, Dala McKinsey reported “the monster that put the Miller County town of 394 residents on the map” was going to be the subject of a full-length motion picture called Tracking the Fouke Monster (The Longview News Journal, February 4, 1972).
“But Charles Pierce, who is producing the movie, says it will not be a tongue-in-cheek look at the monster,” said McKinsey. No. “Pierce felt this was no laughing matter.”
“There has been a lot of humiliation and joking because people are laughing about it,” said Pierce. But he believed the people in Fouke “were fine Christian people,” who would not tell you a [fictionalized] story.
In their research, Pierce and Smith, who would write the screenplay, visited Fouke “to make their own observations and to further check into the legend.”
Now, Smith was a resident of Camarillo, California, where he worked as a writer in the film division for Scientific Management Associates, a consulting firm that dealt with designing governmental and industrial research and development (R&D) management systems. Who also moonlighted as a screenwriter, apparently.
Smith had some previous experience working with George Eastman on The Savage Wild (1970), which was sort of Eastman’s follow up to High, Wild and Free (1968). Eastman was a former wildlife photographer for Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom (1963-1988). Both films were essentially nature documentaries and odes to outdoor living wrapped up in a melodramatic shell. Smith would write the narration on the follow-up film.
Pierce and Smith would spend months “prowling around the bottomlands around Fouke.” They hired a couple of ‘local lore experts’ in Julius “Smokey” Crabtree and Willie Smith, who claimed to have multiple encounters with the Fouke Monster.
Said Smith (Abilene Reporter News, August 22, 1973), who crops up a lot in this tale, “First time I saw him back in 1955, I thought it was a man. I shot at him 15 times with an army rifle, but missed him. Next time he came up behind the house and started throwing chunks at my dog. So, I shot through the brush and missed him again. The third time my wife was working on the TV when I heard him. He slapped my dog across the porch into the screen door.”
But once again, Smith’s aim proved terrible. Which begged the question: How could the creature be shot at so many times without being hit at least once? Even by accident, surely someone must have hit something vital by now?
But Pierce had an answer for that, too, saying, “Of course most of the guns used to shoot at it only had squirrel or bird shot,” which would sort of be like getting peppered with a pellet or BB gun. “I believe there is a strong possibility that he will be killed because all the people in the area are on the lookout for him, and most of them carry guns.”
Still, Pierce held out hopes that someone would capture it alive. “There are no reports of brutal attacks with an intent to kill,” said Pierce. And he felt the Booger only acted up when provoked.
“It can’t seem to stay away from people,” said Earl Smith (The Camarillo Star, August 3, 1972). “Some of its screams are not vicious but rather sound like it's lonely, almost like it is trying to establish communications. And there is no evidence that it has ever intended anybody harm.”
They also brought in a mammalogist from the University of Arkansas as a consultant, and concluded the Fouke Monster couldn’t be a primate because it walked and ran upright instead of moving on all fours like a gorilla or an orangutan. They even played tape-recordings of primate noises, grunts, and howling, but the witnesses insisted they were not the same. (There are also unconfirmed reports that they caught the actual screams on tape and used it in the film.)
“I talked to many people and I don’t think they would make up these stories,” said Pierce (The Shreveport Journal, August 11, 1972). “We found many things we can’t prove. Such as where he may have bedded down, hair has been found but no conclusions drawn. Some hair was found about four and a half feet up on the side of a pine tree which rules out cattle. The hair was about seven inches long.”
As for the most solid piece of physical evidence, said Pierce, “The footprints were most unusual. I can only describe them as puzzling. They are about 13 inches in length and four inches wide, with a high arch and showing only three toes." And more curious still, Pierce observed, “On the right side, close to the arch, there appears to be a small spur.”
An ‘information profile’ was built from all the evidence gathered and the extensive interviews with Fouke area residents who had seen or heard the creature. And the composite picture that emerged would serve as the basis of the film.
Once the research was completed, Pierce and Smith concluded it must be some kind of wildman. Not a surviving strain of Cro-Magnon, but a throwback who’s spent so much time in the swamp that he’s devolved. (Sort of like a bayou Mowgli.) Said Pierce, “My concept is that he is a very unusual man. I think he’ll be found in the near future. He was first sighted in 1954, so he’s getting up there in years and coming closer to houses. You know, food and things are getting a little bit harder for him to find.”
All he had to do now was prove it -- by capturing it on film.
Now, those who worked with the eccentric writer, producer and director over the years always complimented Pierce on his unbridled enthusiasm; but they also admitted that Pierce really didn’t know what he was doing half the time. However, he always knew exactly what he wanted and usually got it on film -- by any means necessary.
And what he got after heading out into the wilderness in October, 1971, with a borrowed and very ancient (but Techniscope-capable) camera, shooting for nearly six months, serving as his own cinematographer, with an inexperienced crew of nine high schoolers, was something truly unique and borderline unprecedented, which eventually saw release as The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972). For Pierce, despite his inexperience, really tapped into something with this faux, fact-or-fiction docudrama.
Using a scholarly narrator to give it some weight and an air of authenticity, Pierce employed flashbacks and local raconteurs to drive his narrative, achieving a folksy verisimilitude -- all on top of some beautiful cinematography, which captures the whole hick mise en scene and lets audiences feel the heat and humidity of the wetlands and bogs, smell the peat moss, be mesmerized by the chorus of insects, and feel all those psychosomatic skeeter bites.
He made the mundane feel menacing and pushed the whole enterprise into something that felt like it should’ve been shown on PBS and not at the Drive-In. Well, at least until the third act, when things go a little bit … bonkers.
And we’ll be addressing that pants-on-fire climax in Part Two of our Two Part look at The Legend of Boggy Creek, and whether or not Pierce’s efforts would pay off or not. Either way, audiences were not prepared for what was about to hit them. Not prepared at all.
Originally posted on December 7, 2002, at 3B Theater.
The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) P&L :: Howco International Pictures / EP: L.W. Ledwell / P: Charles B. Pierce / AP: Earl E. Smith / D: Charles B. Pierce / W: Earl E. Smith / C: Charles B. Pierce / E: Tom Boutross / M: Jaime Mendoza-Nava / S: Vern Stierman, Chuck Pierce Jr., William Stumpp, Willie E. Smith, John P. Hixon, Louise Searcy
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