Back before we had a common name for the giant hairy creatures stalking our wild places, people called Bigfoot all sorts of things. News reports from the 1800s talk of Wild Men or of people sighting gorillas, where gorillas don’t live.
Here is another example of people misidentifying what very clearly sounds like a Bigfoot and calling it a gorilla in the town paper. This news clipping from the May 7, 1892, Lincoln Herald details how the people of Brownsville were terrorized for a time by a ‘gorilla’ walking their streets at night.
A BIG GORILLA
That is Terrorizing the Mammoth Cave
Region of Kentucky.
The little village of Brownsville, Ky., the county seat of Edmonson county, is in a condition of strange excitement over a singular marauder. Brownsville is surrounded with knobs and hills, and the whole country around is cavernous. It is in the vicinity of Edmonson that the Mammoth Diamond, Grand Avenue, Proctor’s, Hundred Dome and other caves are situated. A gorilla is striking terror to the hearts of the people there. During the day the monster keeps himself up among the neighboring knobs, but at night is heard perambulating the streets of Brownsville, and not a few have seen him.
As soon as darkness comes, so great is the terror of the people, everybody closes securely and bars the doors and windows of his house. The animal probably made its escape from some traveling show.
A posse of citizens will probably soon turn out and seek the capture of the
monster or fill its hide with slugs of lead.
The odds of a gorilla sneaking down into town at night to wander around in 1892 Kentucky seems pretty low. A Bigfoot that was looking for new territory and exploring the town at night when people were indoors, now that sounds plausible.
Have you seen any news articles that refer to wild men or escaped gorillas? Let me know if you have any links to them, as I’d like to archive as many as possible.
Leave me a comment below what you think was wandering the streets of Brownsville? Bigfoot? Crazy wild guy? An actual escaped gorilla?
