Creatures of the Lone Star State
Posted by: Nick Redfern on March 26th, 2013
“One of the many things that I was pleased to find when I moved to Texas to live twelve years ago, is that the Lone Star State has a rich history of accounts of werewolf-type beasts and mysteriously over-sized wolves on the loose. For example, in 1845, at the Devil’s River near Del Rio, south-west Texas, a boy living at San Felipe Springs reported seeing several very large wolves and a creature, with long hair covering its features and that looked very much like a young girl, attacking a herd of goats.
“A hunt was quickly launched by frightened locals, and on the third day the girl was sighted again and cornered in a canyon. She was not alone, however. Rather, she was with a pack of wolves; one of which was shot after it attacked the hunters. The girl was captured and taken to a nearby ranch, where she was quickly locked within the confines of a seemingly secure room. That was not the end of the story, however.”
Those are the opening two paragraphs to my latest Mysterious Universe post on sightings of, and encounters with, wolfmen, werewolves, oversized wolves and much more in the fine state of Texas.
And here’s the complete article…
About Nick Redfern
Punk music fan, Tennents Super and Carlsberg Special Brew beer fan, horror film fan, chocolate fan, like to wear black clothes, like to stay up late. Work as a writer.
Thank you. Good read.
Nick – Very interesting article! I have lived in Longview most of my life and the story of Mrs. Gregg sort of rings a bell with me, but I remember it as her hearing noises at her kitchen door in the evening and, opening it, saw the large wolf. Maybe not the same story (I was in elementary school at the time) – I’ll have to check the old newspapers in the library for reference. I remember reading about it in the paper.
When I was in college at East Texas State University in Commerce, Texas, (now A&M Commerce) some of the dorms were on the edge of town and we would listen to the wolves howl at night while we sat in our rooms. Couples who went out “parking” on the back roads would have them come up and surround the car (or truck) howling and making quite a scary scene. (Personal experience). Farmers would shoot them and hang their carcasses on fence posts to rot. These were not small animals! Some even chased a couple of my friends out for a night walk.
These were aggressive creatures and not fearful of people.
This story about the wolf girl can actually be found in the classic kid’s book Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark.
Not sure of it’s origins beyond that but that tends to make me rather suspicious of its veracity.
What about the stories of the “Windigos”? The snouted bigfoots?
One has been seen in a far North Eastern Lake in Texas, yea they do exist and even the well worn and well studied bigfoot trackers that I’ve gone out with,are terrified of these things. These guys are no wimps but will start to shake if they suspect one is around and one guy wont even return to the area, always making excuses. More terrifying than any movie werewolf and MUCH LARGER. They have also been spotted in Louisiana and Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Possibly the origin of the werewolf legend. Except these things are much scarier.