Eight Foot Tall Idaho Wild Man: Bigfoot Or Devil? (1902)

Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Bigfoot Chicks, Melissa Adair. As serious researchers, the Bigfoot Chicks are committed to seeking the truth regarding the Bigfoot mystery. You can visit their blog at bigfootchicks.blogspot.com.

Interesting article mentioning a "4" toed track or a creature said to be 8' tall and covered with hair. Eyewitnesses describe the creature as "fierce" and tracks were found measuring 22" long and 6" wide.

The Anaconda Standard
Anaconda, Montana, Wednesday Morning, January 29, 1902.

Idaho's Wild Man

Eight feet tall, covered with hair, possessing the semblance of humanity and fierce with the fierceness of a wild beast - that is the description of Idaho's newest wild man, according to the veracious Deseret News. An associated press dispatch from Salt Lake yesterday gave the tale in full. There is a familiar note in the story as it comes, an intangible something that recalls to mind those always thrilling and delightful little yarns the New York Sun used to print from New Jersey about wild men. But, of course, since the Deseret News is a church paper and filled with piety, the slightest insinuation that the thrilling item from Idaho is not founded on fact is entirely out of place.

The Idaho wild man, according to those who have seen him, is a regular old fashioned bogy man, the materialization of that awful, hideous, soul thrilling thing that formed the subject of a little ditty in "Sindbad." When the party of skaters on the Port Neuf river saw him approaching perhaps they were minded of the words of that ditty, for certainly he tried to catch them. That he failed was due to the fact that they beat him to the wagons. No one can blame them for their fright. Even an Idaho man is not wittingly going against a eight foot monster which leaves a footprint twenty-two inches long and six inches wide. one well directed blow from a foot like that can put a man out more completely than several drinks of Calena street whiskey.

A peculiar feature of the Idaho wild man's track is that it shows only four toes, the number now affected by Carrie Nation since her distressing accident of several days ago when her new tomahawk amputated a pink one from her right foot. Four toes, according to a scientific gentleman who has been gazing into the future, is the number that will be fashionable on each human foot several centuries hence. It cannot be that the creature is the new man, a human placed upon earth in advance of his proper era. Idaho is a progressive state, but that she has leaped ahead several ages without the rest of the world being aware of it is hardly probable. The four toes do not prove the existence of a new man. More likely a closer examination of the track would reveal that what appears to be the mark of four toes is the imprint of a cloven hoof. If in the snow behind a faint line is traced, as if a forked tail had been dragged along, the identity of the monster is established. The twenty men from Chesterfield who are in pursuit would best beware, else all that is left of them on earth will be a smell of brimstone and a fond remembrance.