Supposedly happened in Palo Pinto County Texas, does anybody know the legend/story, or any other sightings in this area?

here is something relatedhugos monster?



edit. i dont know why the damn link wont work. it is bfro report #8861.it is from the area in question regarding the white bigfoot in question. also there are several links if you do a google of hugo's monster. you cant get to the bfro report thru a link off the google linkhere

The "Dr. Hugo's Monster" story is, of course, entirely fictional. In a nutshell, its a "Frankenstein" type story about a fictional country doctor that, having been cast out of other towns for his wierd experiments, travelled west to Palo Pinto, Texas, in the late 1800s. Eventually, he returns to his wierd experiments. The local Sheriff gets wind of the fact that a large animal in a crate, and addressed to Dr. Hugo, is waiting at the train station in Fort Worth, some 60 miles east, and he goes to investigate. By the time he gets there, the crate has already been picked up by, presumably, Dr. Hugo, who has taken it to his secret laboratory in a cave in a rocky outcrop at the top of the southern end of Kyle Mountain, a few miles south of the town of Palo Pinto. A few nights later, a local rancher's daughter disappears while out riding her horse. A posse puts two and two together and, using blood hounds, follows the scent to the foot of Kyle Mountain. Dr. Hugo confronts the mob before disappearing inside the cave, blowing the whole thing up. Soon, neighboring ranchers and other travellers in the area report sightings of a sasquatch-type creature, sometimes reported with long blonde hair. Some embellished reports say that it screams like a woman.

The story had great currency around Worth Ranch Scout Camp on the Brazos River, just off Farm Road Four, south of Palo Pinto, during the 1950's and 60's. Undoubtedly, that is where the story originated and found its most enthusiastic listeners.

I had attended summer camp there all during the 1960's, beginning in 1960, and worked on the Camp Staff in the summers of 1966 and 67. In 1980, I recorded the story and published it in my book "Palo Pinto Campfires," at which time that version of the story became a bit more fixed and less fluid. The story is still the favorite "camp fire story" at the camp, although usually outlawed by adult staff and scoutmasters as "too scary" for younger scouts. But the older boys, most of whom have already heard it many times, will quietly compare notes and ponder the elements of the story in hushed conversations when the younger scouts are not around.

As with other stories of this kind, however, this story was likely invented to provide an explanation for other unexplained "sightings" or occurrences. In the early 1960's, a first year Camp Staff member had been attacked by something behind Roeser Dining Hall. When he was found, he was lying in high weeds and was delirious. He only repeated the words, "something white, something white." He was taken into Fort Worth, returned to the care of his family, and would never return to the camp. At the time that I heard this report, in the mid-1960's, there was no connection to the story of Dr. Hugo's Monster. But it is interesting that, over the years, Hugo's Monster has become a "white sasquatch," therein blending the two mysteries into one.

There have been other reports, throughout the last few decades, of periodic sightings of "an ape-man," "a big monkey," "a gorilla," or even "a man in a monkey suit." I heard one of the most credible reports in the summer of 1980, after the release of my book "Palo Pinto Campfires." I was visiting with neighboring rancher John Pennington, his wife and daughter, at the Pennington home. The Pennington Ranch is situated just north and east of Kyle Mountain on the same side of Farm Road Four as Worth Ranch, and also borders the Brazos River. Two other adult camp staff members were there as well.

As the conversation turned to "the new book," it began to focus on the story of "Hugo's Monster," which, by that time, everyone had read. Pennington, an older man, a life-long cattle rancher and a man of few words, was asked by his adult daughter if he'd ever seen anything like that. He responded by saying, "Well, I don't know anything about 'Hugo's Monster,' but I did see a monkey one time just after sunset on the road near the Worth Ranch entrance." Everyone in the room was stunned and speechless. His daughter asked what he meant by "a monkey." She asked if it had a tail, and if it was a 'monkey' or an 'ape'." Somewhat irritated at his being asked to remember such elaborate detail, he answered, "I don't know one way or the other. All I know is that it didn't have a pink butt, like the ones at the Fort Worth Zoo."

He related that, as he was driving over to Worth Ranch one evening, just after sunset, that he had seen a monkey in the middle of the dirt road, near the Worth Ranch entrance gate. As his headlights had illuminated it, the monkey had stopped what it was doing, looked at him, and immediately ran off into the trees. An admission like that, from a practical man like John Pennington -- a serious man not given to practical jokes, was solid gold. This was a real sighting! A sighting of something, if not a monkey, then what?

Other sightings are as undetailed. One evening during the early 1980's, three Camp Staff members were driving one of the camp's larger trucks through a remote part of the Camp down near the river. They were startled by something that ran out of the bushes, across the road right in front of their truck, through its headlights, and down a trail toward the river bank. When they arrived back at the main part of the camp, they excitedly related the story to others who immediately accused them of trying to perpetrate a hoax. Irritated and embarrassed by the unexpected response from other Camp Staff members, the three witnesses quickly clammed up and refused to talk about it any more. When I quizzed them about it the next day, I suggested that it may have been another scout or a scoutmaster. They immediately discounted this possibility, as they had seen it too well. When asked to describe it, they simply said, "It was big, and black and hairy."

Other sightings have been similar to this one. All seem to be very brief, and usually bring ridicule from others when reported.

Pete Normand

Back in the mid-nineties, I took my son out to the scout camp at Possum Kingdom Lake on YMCA Indian Guides campouts. Do you know of any stories around that area? I know we passed through the Palo Pinto area on the way (from Dallas).

Sorry. All the reports that I have come from right in the area of the Brazos River from Morris Shepherd Dam at Possum Kingdom Lake down to the Dark Valley Bridge at Farm Road Four. This is a fairly small area and is centered around Worth Ranch Scout Camp. Of course, this small area of Palo Pinto County is literally crawling with Boy Scouts throughout the early summer. Prior to the mid-1970's, it was common for small groups of Scouts to hike outside the Ranch boundaries all over the northwestern part of the county. But over the past 25 to 30 years this practice has become less and less common as lawyers for the B.S.A., fearful of insurance problems, have discouraged scouts from leaving the Ranch. This probably explains why most of the sightings I know about are limited to the Ranch property. There is fairly low attendance at the Ranch on weekends throughout the year.

However, the area of lower Possum Kingdom Lake near the Morris Shepherd Dam is only eight miles from Worth Ranch and that entire area of the northwestern part of the County is zigzagged by the Brazos River which winds its way down from the Lake down through quiet, largely uninhabited, valleys and canyons filled with trees and foliage, and honeycombed with caves made by the many rocky outcrops which line the familiar flat-topped mesas. This whole area is characterized by fairly large ranches which cuts down on the number of people per square mile.

The population of Palo Pinto County (27,000) is concentrated mostly in the eastern and southern parts of the county. And the most populous part of the northwestern quarter is right around the lake, leaving the area around Worth Ranch largely vacant. The counties to the west, northwest, and north of Palo Pinto County are even less populated than Palo Pinto. The rural areas of these three counties average about 4 people per square mile. The area around Worth Ranch is even less than that. Compare this to the density of Parker County, just to the east of Palo Pinto County, at 104 people per square mile, or the density of Tarrant County (Fort Worth), two counties to the east, at 1700 people per square mile.

This stretch of the Brazos River is popular for weekend canoe trips, many of which begin at the low-water bridge just below the Morris Shepherd Dam at Possum Kingdom Lake. In 1959, author John Graves wrote his popular account of a canoe trip, beginning at the Possum Kingdom Dam, down what he called "the upper-middle Brazos." Canoeists can make the trip from the Dam down to the Dark Valley Bridge in one good day, or they can choose to spend the night camping along the banks of the River. One popular camping spot is at Hermit's Cave on Chick Bend, just above Worth Ranch, about half way from the Dam to the Dark Valley Bridge. It may be that there have been unreported sightings by non-Scout groups along this stretch of the River.

Whoa.
I didn't think anyone else on this board would've heard of that story.

You must've gone to worth ranch at some time or another i assume?

CGunn: I guess I'm not sure how to reply to that question. If you've been reading the previous string of five posts, the two longest of which are mine, should leave no doubt as to the answer to your question. Am I missing something here?

I meant the Topic Starter...

And you wrote Palo Pinto campfires?
That's cool.
Is it true that only about 200 copies were released?

CGunn:

Thank you. I guess I was confused.

1000 copies of Palo Pinto Campfires were published in 1980, all were paperbound. However, at some point during the 1980s, I took 100 copies and had them hardbound. Since all copies were numbered, the 100 hardbound copies were numbered 1/1000 thru 100/1000. Numbers 101 through 150 were sold to the 1980 camp staff, and others requested special numbers that matched their Troop numbers, etc. Sometimes I was able to accomodate them. But all copies finally sold out sometime in the early 1990s.

Thanks for asking,

Pete

I investigated an interesting encounter that took place on the Brazos River in the early 1990's that was witnessed by a longtime family friend.

Group of six people report distant encounter on the Brazos River at Lake Whitney

I responded to this in another thread. I was a member of Troop 37 during the early-mid eighties. We used to go down to Worth Ranch all the time. And remember hearing stories including that of Hugo's monster. There was definitely some weirdness around Kyle Mountain. Though I never seen anything personally, I do remembered the feeling of being watched on several occasions.

And speaking of local legends/spooky stories. I'm sure you've heard about the Lake Worth Monster. Most the events surounding this legend took place in the late sixties.

Yes I have.
And yeah, some parts of Worth Ranch are pretty creepy.

Like if you ever walked down the road that goes to the boat docks.
The woods around it are freaky.

Just the thickness freaks me out.
You're like, "What's in there? I can't see in! Aggh!!!"

Sorta.