The tourist girl was right! The monster's head was large enough to swallow a boat, Abe thought in shock. Meet a Utah resident who learns to his chagrin that Bear Lake really does have a monster.
If you travel to Bear Lake in Utah on a quiet day, you just might catch a glimpse of the Bear Lake Monster. The monster looks like a huge brown snake and is nearly 90 feet long. It has ears that stick out from the side of its skinny head and a mouth big enough to eat a man. According to some, it has small legs and it kind of scurries when it ventures out on land. But in the water - watch out! It can swim faster than a horse can gallop - makes a mile a minute on a good day. Sometimes the monster likes to sneak up on unwary swimmers and blow water at them. The ones it doesn't carry off to eat, that is.
The lake was very calm. Above, a bright summer moon provided unlimited visibility. Suddenly, just a few feet offshore, the surface parted with a swelling of angry water as a serpentine head reared high, swaying from side to side and leering with great red eyes. From the nose and mouth of the monster gushed streams of water. It had huge ears like slimy bushel baskets.
Rumors of the Bear Lake monster were reported to the first white settlers of the lake by the Indians of the region. They reported that many times in the past it had captured and carried away braves who were swimming. They said the monster was of the serpent kind, but had legs about 18 inches long and sometimes crawled out of the water.
From the first settlement of the valley by Mormons in the early 1860s, various persons reported seeing a huge animal in the lake. Charles C. Rich, who was in charge of settlement under Brigham Young, was curious about the monster and started keeping notes but put little credence to them because "such persons have generally been alone."
Typical of these early stories was that of S. M. Johnson, who lived across from the lake. One day in June, 1868, Johnson was riding his horse along the lakeside when he saw something in the lake which he thought was the body of a man. He got a little closer and saw that the water did not wash the object to shore. He thought it must be a large tree with its trunk anchored in the bottom of the lake. However, the tree opened a mouth which was "large enough to swallow a man" and was blowing water from his mouth and nose.
Johnson clearly noted the head, the huge ears, and also three small legs raised from the water. Johnson's visit with the monster must have made it friendly, for within one week it was spotted by more than 20 people. The monster was soon accepted as real throughout the valley.
A few nights later M.C. and Allen Davis of St. Charles, Idaho, accompanied by Thomas Slight and John Collings of Paris, Idaho, were taking six girls home from a party in Fish Haven when they were suddenly attracted to a peculiar motion of waves on the water. It was swimming south and all agreed it swam with an incredible speed. Mr. Davis thought it moved about a mile a minute. In a few minutes after the first monster passed by, it was followed by a second much smaller one. A larger one followed this, and so on until four large ones and six smaller ones had run southward out of sight. These witnesses were very prominent men and were well known in the county.
A feller I heard about spotted the monster early one evening as he was walking along the lake. He tried to shoot it with his rifle. The man was a crack shot, but not one of his bullets touched that monster. It scared the heck out of him and he high tailed it home faster than you can say Jack Robinson. Left his rifle behind him and claimed the monster ate it.
Sometimes, when the monster has been quiet for a while, people start saying it is gone for good. Some folks even dredge up that old tale that says how Pecos Bill heard about the Bear Lake monster and bet some cowpokes that he could wrestle that monster until it said uncle. According to them folks, the fight lasted for days and created a hurricane around Bear Lake. Finally, Bill flung that there monster over his shoulder and it flew so far it went plumb around the world and landed in Loch Ness, where it lives to this day.
Course, we know better than that. The Bear Lake Monster is just hibernating-like. Keep your eyes open at dusk and maybe you'll see it come out to feed. Just be careful swimming in the lake, or you might be its next meal!
