The Grand Canyon Has A Wild Man (1903)

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.

This is a fascinating account of a "wild man" that was observed for a length of time unnoticed. A full and detailed description is given of the creature's appearance and his behavior once he discovered he was being watched and the drama that unfolded thereafter.

The Arizona Republican
Phoenix, Arizona, Wednesday Morning, June 3, 1903
Grand Canyon Wild Man

An Additional Attraction Has Been Provided at the Great Gorge

The people of Arizona duly appreciate the fact that they have in the Grand Canyon the greatest attraction for tourists that the world affords, but they have silently mourned the absence of exciting features in connection with the wonderful gorge. Every little jim-crow seashore resort has its new serpent, but the Grand Canyon has been under a serious handicap in having nothing but its own scenery wherewith to thrill visitors. The shortage has been remedied, however. The Canyon has a wild man. We know it harbors a wild man, for the San Francisco Examiner is authority for the story, and the Examiner never lies - at least it does not always admit that it is lying. And, anyway, people are hard to please who insists upon an affidavit with each story that appears in the Sunday supplements of the yellow journa's. Our own citizens, who visit the Canyon this summer, should not fail to take along a camera for protection against the wild man. But here is the story:

Many strange stories have been told of the "wild man" of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and while some persons have credited these weird tales, they have for the most part been regarded as the ingenious inventions of imaginative travelers, and have passed into tradition as such. But according to I. W. Stevens of Cedar, CO, the "wild man" is not a myth and he gives a thrilling account of an encounter he had with the creature.

"Two years ago," says Mr. Stevens, "I had business in the northwestern part of Arizona that tool me in the neighborhood of the extreme lower end of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado river, in Mohave county, Arizona. Having the misfortune of getting my arm broken, I took a trip to the river to kill time and catch a few beaver. I constructed a s skiff, with the aid of a friend, and , when my arm got strong enough, I took a trip up the Canyon as far as I could go with a boat. A few miles above the entrance I hauled my boat upon the sand and got ready to examine the rock walls.

"The first thing that attracted my attention was the imprint of bare feet in the sand. Thinking the tracks had been made by some Indian perhaps a Piute or a Hualapi, I began looking the gorge over with much interest. Going down stream a short distance i found more tracks.

"The third day of my stay I saw the head of a man on a bench of rocks on the north side of the river. Evidently he was seated on the edge of a cliff some distance above my camp. I rowed up stream a little above the point where I saw the man's head and part of his shoulders above the greanewood brush. Climbing up to the bench I had some difficulty in finding a place that i could get over the ledge and be on a level with my strange neighbor.''

"I finally succeeded in approaching closer to the point. I saw sitting on a large boulder a man with long white hair and matted beard that reached to his knees. The creature was unaware of my approach and I gazed upon him for some moments unobserved. He was about fifty yards away and in full view. He wore no clothing, and upon his talon-like fingers were claws at least two inches long. A coat of gray hair nearly covered his body, with here and there a spot of dirty skin showing. i had found the wild man of the rocks!

"At that moment a rock loosened by some animal came rolling down. The creature turned his face toward me. Horrors. What a face - it was seared and burned brown by the sun with fiery green eyes. Brandishing this bludgeon, he shrieked and chattered for a moment, then started toward me, roaring and still flouring his weapon. Faster and aster he came and my hair began to stiffen.

"I am a poor runner, so I stood my ground. When the creature was within about fifteen yards of me I raise my rifle to fire, thinking to cripple him. As I glanced along the barrel I heard a growl just above the wild man. He also had heard the growl and braced himself for the shock.

"I drew a hasty bead on the cougar and pressed the trigger. When the smoke had cleared away the mother cougar lay dead where the wild man stood. The man himself had disappeared. The two young cougars were still on the rock, apparently greatly frightened by the report and echoes of my old Sharp's rifle.

"Reaching hastily for a cartridge, I found I had neglected to buckle on my belt when leaving camp, so I hastily retreated to the boat, where I found everything as I had left it. I shoved the boat off and drifted toward camp which was near the cougars. There lay the old cougar where he had fallen. The wild man was standing over the two cubs which also were dead, he having beat the life out of them with a club. He stood a moment gazing on the carcasses, then got down on hands and knees and drank warm blood as it flowed from the death woulds. The sight sickened me.

"I stood up in the boat and yelled. The man sprang to his feet, took a long look at me then fled up from ledge to ledge until he reached the fourth ledge, where he stopped. Here he flourished his club again and screamed the wildest, most unearthly screech i ever hear, then turned and sprang up the craggy wall of the canyon.

"Not fancying my wild neighbor, I packed my outfit into the boat and drifted down and out of the canyon before I made camp for the night. That was the strangest adventure of my life.

"Tradition records that years ago hostile Indians captured three men, bound them to logs far up the canyon and cast them adrift upon the swollen river. It may be that this wild creature is one of those unfortunate men who, by chance, freed himself and escaped death, but was made insane by his awful experience."