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| Photo by Lee Juillerat |
Decades before the Mountain Monsters crew roamed the Appalachians, building traps and searching for elusive cryptids, such as the Grafton Monster, Mothman, and the Dire Wolves, a group from the Pacific Northwest was hoping it's DIY trap would finally bring proof that the infamous Sasquatch was real!
It started with a miner named Perry Lovell. After finding 18 inch footprints in his garden, he got in contact with Roger Patterson of the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot footage fame. Patterson reached out to filmmaker Ron Olson, who in turn reached out to the forestry service and received a special permit. This permit wasn't for filming, however. It was a permit to build what was presumably the world's first (and only?) Bigfoot TRAP.
The trap, located within the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, was built in 1974. It is a ten foot by ten foot wooden and metal box, anchored to the ground with telephone poles. A strong, heavy metal grate acts as a door. The idea behind the design was to bait the trap with a carcass of goat, rabbit, etc. When the Bigfoot would enter the trap and reach for the bait, the metal door would slam down, trapping it inside. At the same time, an alarm would sound in a nearby watchman's cabin.
For six years, members of the North American Wildlife Research Team kept the trap baited and the watchman's cabin manned. Unfortunately, it only managed to trap a few bears, and possibly a hunter and/or a hippie. When the project was abandoned in 1980, the door was bolted into a permanently open position to avoid any people becoming accidentally trapped.
However, people still made the trek to visit this unique little building, to see a piece of weird history and hopefully have their own encounter with a Sasquatch. Located in southern Jackson County, just a few miles from the California border, the Bigfoot trap continued to receive visitors. After nearly being destroyed by a fallen tree in 2005, plans were made to restore the trap in 2006. Since then, the trap is maintained by the US Forestry Service and continues to receive visitors. Once in a remote area of woods, the trap is now quite accessible, thanks to the building of the Applegate Dam and road. It is a short hike along the Collings Mountain Hiking Trail, which also contains the ruins of the old watchman's cabin as well.
Bigfoot tourists here in West Virginia have several great outdoor areas to visit where Bigfoot have been seen and heard in the past. For those a little less outdoorsy, there's the WV Bigfoot Museum in Sutton. But, what we don't have is our very own permanent Bigfoot trap!
Sources and Further Reading:
Bigfoot Trap--Wonderfully Weird, by Lee Juillerat for the Herald and News. 29 September 2017
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