Wolverines in the Upper Midwest

Repost site.

This post was split off from an earlier post that got too large, California Wolverine Rediscovered After 85 Years. This particular post will deal with the question of wolverines in the Upper Midwest. Until recently, wolverines had been extinct in the Upper Midwest for 85-200 years.

However, one was photographed recently in Michigan. Furthermore, there have been some tantalizing sightings in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota and even a few in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri in recent years. It is distinctly possible the wolverines may be reclaiming some of their historical territory in the Upper Midwest. If so, this is fascinating indeed.

Wolverines in Michigan

In 2004, a wolverine was photographed in Ubly, Michigan, 90 miles north of Detroit. They were extirpated from Michigan almost 200 years ago. DNA testing of this wolverine showed that it was from Alaska. How it got from Alaska to Michigan is anyone’s guess. On March 14, 2010, this wolverine was found dead in Sanilac County, Michigan, south of where it was originally sighted in Ubly.

There have been other sightings in Lower Michigan. In November 1958, a wolverine was seen near Cadillac, Michigan by a boy who was deer hunting.

A wolverine was sighted around 1998-2000 in Tawas, Michigan.

In August 2009, a wolverine was spotted by motorists twice in short period of time just outside of Alpena, Michigan which is on the shore of Lake Huron in the far north of the Thumb near the Upper Peninsula.

In November 2009, four people spotted a wolverine outside of West Brach, Michigan in the north of the Thumb south of Huron National Forest.

These wolverines could have come down from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan because there are wolverine sightings there. Or possibly they could have come from Southern Ontario near Port Huron, though that area is densely populated. There is known to be a population in Ontario, albeit in the northern part.

The sightings on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan have been in Delta County, Tahquamenon Falls State Park and the Keweenaw Peninsula. I assume that the Upper Peninsula population came from Ontario, possibly across the St. Mary’s River, if it freezes over in wintertime.

There was also an unverified wolverine sighting in the UP on November 21, 2001 at 3 PM, crossing Highway M-64 1 mile south of

A forest road in Delta County, Michigan. This road is in Escanaba State Forest. A wolverine was sighted here in an unverified sighting sometime between 1999-2004. During this period, there was about one wolverine sighting a year in Michigan, all from the Upper Peninsula.
The forests here have been changed massively from 100 years ago, when most of the White Pine was logged off. I assume what we have here is Eastern second-growth forest coming back in after the old growth was logged off. This second-growth explosion is fueling an increase in wildlife numbers, especially deer, all over the East Coast.
Tahquamenon Falls in Tahquamenon Falls State Park. This area is located at the far east end of the UP near Ontario. The town of Paradise is nearby, as is Whitefish Bay. If the St. Mary’s River is frozen over, wolverines may well come down from Ontario to the UP. The part of Ontario near Sault Saint Marie is pretty sparsely populated. An unverified sighting of a wolverine was reported here in 2002.

Wolverines in Minnesota

In the late 2000’s, there was rash of wolverine sightings around Babbitt, Minnesota, which is near Ely in the far northeastern part of the state near Canada. A tiny lynx population has recently also been confirmed there. The sightings around Babbitt appear to be genuine. one documented sighting in Northeastern Minnesota in 1965, but details are lacking. In 1974 there was a report of a wolverine in a hay field in North-Central Minnesota, near the North Woods. There was also a sighting on Koochiching County on the Minnesota border with Canada in 1982. That sighting was deemed credible.

In early 2008, there have been reports of dog and horse kills in and around Rollag, Minnesota lately. Certain things about the killings indicate that a wolverine may be doing this. Rollag is far to the north, getting up near the North Woods. It is east of and not far from Fargo, North Dakota.

There is also a report of a wolverine captured on a security camera in 2005-2006 at a Ford dealership in the town of Zumbrota in Southeast Minnesota. This land is very much prairie.

In 1991, a baby wolverine was seen dying by the side of the road on Highway 232 near Lake Nichols close to Cotton, Minnesota. The motorists did not know how rare it was or else they would have kept the carcass. In 1999, a wolverine was spotted by a canoeist in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota on the border of Ontario, Canada.

In November 2004, a wolverine was seen eating a gut pile from a dead deer near Askov, Minnesota.

In 2005, a wolverine was spotted in the Tamarack National Wildlife Refuge northeast of Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.

In Summer 2006, a fisherman fishing in the Narrows between Big and Little Cut Foot Sioux Lakes in Northern Minnesota saw a wolverine. He was able to watch it for 15 minutes until it caught his scent and left.

In Summer 2008, a wolverine was spotted in the forest of Eagles Nest, Minnesota, south of Ely and north of Tower. In Fall 2008, a hunter spotted a wolverine in the Black Brook Swamp east of Camp Ripley, Minnesota.

In 2010, a deer hunter saw a wolverine in Douglas County, Minnesota. Another wolverine was photographed near there five years later. In July 2010, a wolverine was seen by a motorist at night on US 53 ten miles south of International Falls, Minnesota. In Summer 2010, a wolverine was seen outside of Chisholm, Minnesota near Superior State Park.

In July 2011, a wolverine was seen crossing Highway 232 near Lake Nichols close to Cotton, Minnesota.

On January 12, 2012, a wolverine was spotted somewhere in Southern Minnesota. Someone went out to their car late at night, and a wolverine was by the garage. Tracks were found the very next day.

On July 12, 2012, two hunters saw a wolverine while driving on the Dick’s Parkway road 13 miles south of Warroad, Minnesota. The GPS location was given as 48 42.131, -95 20.566.

On October 20, 2012 at midnight, a wolverine was seen on someone’s driveway in Ham Lake, Minnesota.

At 6 PM on On October 13, 2013, a wolverine was seen in the Superior National Forest crossing Pike Lake Road on the east side of Pike Lake between Lutsen and Grand Marais, Minnesota. This is seven miles from Lake Superior.

On June 6, 2014, a wolverine was spotted in Jordan, Minnesota in a corn and alfalfa field. It was running away from a neighbor’s elk ranch. Two men observed it for a full two minutes. The areas consists of open farm country with some random tree lines.

On June 13, 2014 at 2:30 in the afternoon, a wolverine was seen crossing Road 327 in Watowan County, Minnesota. It was seen two miles east and six miles north of Saint James, Minnesota on the Watowan River.

On April 30, 2015, two wolverines were seen running, one behind the other, just east of Rush City, Minnesota in the Saint Croix River Valley.

In May 2015, a wolverine was photographed by a trail cam in Douglas County, Minnesota. I have seen the photo and felt that it was interesting but inconclusive. I showed the photo to a wolverine expert, and he also said it could be a wolverine, but it was unclear enough so it was inconclusive.

 

Old State Route 52 north of Zumbrota, Minnesota. It’s hard to believe that wolverines inhabit such terrain. Wolverines are recolonizing their old habitat on the US prairie. Why?

Many have questioned whether wolverines were actually common in prairies or if prairies merely served as population sinks. It is looking more and more like prairies are a natural home for wolverines, strange as it may seem. If these reports are accurate, it means that wolverines are re-colonizing Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and possibly also Iowa, which is fantastic news!

Prairie Island (Sioux) Indian Reservation near Zumbrota, Minnesota. Is it possible that wolverines in the past preyed on the vast buffalo herds of prairie, perhaps especially on dead buffaloes?

Wolverines in Wisconsin

The occurrence of the wolverine in Wisconsin is rare but documented.

On an unknown date, a wolverine was spotted on Peshtigo Brook Fire Road where it joins Kitzinger Road near Gillett, Wisconsin.

In May 1978, a wolverine was spotted by a boy and his father while walking along the Oconto River in Oconto County eight miles west of Crooked Lake, Wisconsin. The boy was able to observe it for one minute.

A man grew up in Land O’ Lakes in far Northern Wisconsin on the border with Michigan in an area known as the North Woods. This is an area of very thick, wild forest and swamps. There are many wolves, bears, and possibly wolverines in this part of Wisconsin.

In 1982, the man saw three wolves in his front yard. In 1990, he and his friends treed 22 different bears in a single day while training bear dogs. They also had a frightening standoff with a wolverine on that day. From about 1983-1995, when he engaged in frequent deer hunting, the man saw one or more wolverines every year.

In September 1990, a wolverine was seen several times over two weeks. The last time the man saw one was in 2006 near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. All sightings took place between 1983-2006 in the North Woods approximately between Rhinelander and Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin. The bear density in this region is said to be incredible, or at least it was 10 years ago (Bangs 2009).

In the early 1990’s, a wolverine ran in front of a man’s car in Marinette County, Wisconsin.

In 1998, Jeffrey Wiitala saw a wolverine in Taylor County, Wisconsin while trout fishing on the Big Rib River at a distance of about 25 feet. It paid no attention to him and leisurely lumbered off into the brush.

A wolverine was photographed on top of a woodpile in Green Lake County, Wisconsin in recent years. The disposition of the photo is unknown.

There are also recent sightings in the Black River Falls area and to the north in Wisconsin from 2000-2007.

A 2003 sighting in Lafayette County in the far south of the state was regarded as credible by the the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.

In 2004-2005, a wolverine was spotted in Niagara, Wisconsin in the fall on opening day of deer hunting season.

In Winter 2006, Mary Ann Ludwikowski of Weyerhauser, Wisconsin. In addition, Mary Ann found a dead wolverine roadkilled in her driveway. She gave it away to a man.

In October 2007, Ludwikowski and Sheri Bodecker of Weyerhauser, Wisconsin about 2 miles west of Weyerhauser. It crossed Hwy 8 and proceeded to run northeast through a large field. The wolverine that crossed the road in front of us was on a full run, but it frequently turned to look at us. We watched it run through a 40 acre field for about two minutes.

In 2010, a roadkilled wolverine was found by the side of the road in Green Lake County, Wisconsin.

In November 2010, a father and son saw a wolverine while sitting in a deer stand north of Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin.

In March 2011, a wolverine was seen crossing Highway 53 between New Auburn and Bloomer, Wisconsin.

On July 29, 2011, a wolverine was seen crossing the highway on US 20 east of Sac City, Wisconsin.

On November 25, 2011, a deer hunter saw a wolverine run by his blind south of Gillette, Wisconsin.

In Fall 2011, a wolverine was seen twice in a one week period by two hunters in northern Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, one mile south of Brown County. Over the next year, a wolverine, suspected to be the same one as before, was seen in area.

On November 6, 2012, a wolverine was spotted by a man and his girlfriend hunting deer on their farm in Buffalo County, Wisconsin. They observed it for half a minute. A wolverine had been seen in the area 20 years before in the early 1990’s.

In July 2013, a wolverine killed a woman’s two cats at a home at in Wisconsin at Highway 53 and I-94 Highway 9 miles form Eau Claire and 6 miles form Osseo. A few days later, a neighbor came within three feet of a wolverine. Three weeks before, a nearby tavern owner said he had seen a wolverine on a county road. Around the time the woman’s cats vanished, neighbors in the vicinity started seeing their pets disappearing. Before the cats were killed, it had been eating the woman’s cat food for some time.

On August 28, 2013, a man saw a wolverine running away from a trash bin at a gas station in Elk Mound, Wisconsin.

On June 13, 2014, a wolverine was seen in a field only two miles north of Independence, Wisconsin.

North Dakota

There have been a few unverified sightings of wolverines in North Dakota recently.

In 1988, two wolverines were seen along the Little Missouri River in the Badlands of far Western North Dakota by a very experienced fur trapper.

In 1992, a man saw a wolverine in Central North Dakota while hunting sharp-tailed grouse. It was about 50 yards away.

In 2004, there was an unverified sighting of a wolverine near Minot. The observer watched it for a good five minutes.

On June 23, 2013, a wolverine was seen in the Turtle Mountains in far Northern North Dakota on the Manitoba border.

In February 2015, mailmen spotted a wolverine on their route near Rugby, North Dakota. That is 50 miles east of Minot and 60 miles south of the Manitoba border with Canada.

South Dakota

There have also been wolverine sightings in South Dakota in the past 60 years. There was a verifiable wolverine sighting in the south-central portion of the state in 1961 (Aubry et al 1967). From 1998-2016, an 18 year period, three wolverines were seen in Lake County, South Dakota. One was an adult and two were juveniles. The adult was severely mauled by people’s dogs.

On July 12, 2012, someone saw a wolverine near Nisland, South Dakota on the Belle Fourche River in Western South Dakota 25 miles from the Wyoming border. Their neighbor had seen a wolverine shortly before the sighting. People 10 miles northwest of Nisland said that they had seen a wolverine earlier.

Wolverines in Iowa

A female wolverine was Wolverines in Nebraska

Incredibly enough, there have been a number of wolverine sightings in Nebraska in recent years.

It makes sense because wolverines are native to Nebraska, at least in the more mountainous parts to the north. In the Hall of Nebraska Wildlife in the University of Nebraska Natural History Museum, there is a mounted specimen of a wolverine that was shot on Scott’s Bluff, Nebraska in the 1880’s. That area is in far Western Nebraska on the North Platte River only 20 miles from the Wyoming border. This part of Nebraska borders on Southeastern Wyoming, which is known to have wolverine populations.

In particular, wolverines have been repeatedly sighted in and around Antelope and Knox Counties in far Northeastern Nebraska near the Missouri River and the South Dakota border. This area is near Louis and Clark Lake and the Santee Sioux Indian Reservation.

In this area, there have been many sightings along the Verdigre and Niobrara Rivers. For instance, in Summer 1998, a number of people spotted a wolverine near Verdigre, Nebraska. One was seen chasing a deer out of a draw in the middle of a hay meadow.

In April 2012, a fire and range ecologist spotted a wolverine running away after a cedar burn operation in a steep area near Scotia on the North Loup River. This is about in the dead center of Nebraska.

On October 29, 2014, a wet wolverine that seemed to have been swimming somewhere was seen in a pasture in Central Nebraska near Doniphan between Hastings and Grand Island. This is quite close to the Platte River where it may have been swimming. The area is between Lincoln and Platte, Nebraska.

There has also been one sighting north of Gordon in Northwestern Nebraska on the headwaters of Wounded Knee Creek near the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. This area is east of the town of Whiteclay, Nebraska, now the scene of a famous fight over selling booze to Pine Ridge Indians.

Wolverines in Missouri

Incredibly enough, there have even been wolverine sightings very close to Missouri.

On October 28, 2011, a man spotted a wolverine emerging from a cornfield and crossing State Highway E just south of Highway 13. This is hilly farm country. This area is in Eastern Nebraska not far from the Missouri River and is close to the place where the borders of Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri all meet. There are a number of good sightings in both Nebraska and Iowa, so it is possible, though bizarre, that wolverines may exist in Western Missouri.

Grey Wolves in Massachusetts and Michigan!

The first grey wolf in 94 years was seen recently in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. It was a lone male. The UP, Minnesota and Wisconsin all have healthy populations. The Black Bear and wolf populations in Minnesota have shown dramatic increases in recent years, and there is now a healthy population of over 25 lynx in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for the first time in 30 years.

In other great news along similar lines, an Eastern grey wolf, the first in 160 years, was detected in Massachusetts. It killed over a dozen lambs before the farmer shot it to death. The killing was probably justified, but it is unfortunate that the first wolf in the state in over 150 years got shot to death. There will probably be more wolves coming to the state after this one, though.

References

Aubry, K. B., McKelvey, K. S., and Copeland, J. P. 2007. “Distribution and Broadscale Habitat Relations of the Wolverine in the Contiguous United States.” Journal of Wildlife Management 71, 7: 148-158.
Bangs, Ray. 2009. Personal communication.
Haugen, A. O. 1961. “Wolverine in Iowa.” Journal of Mammalogy 42: 546-547.
Zimmermann, W. J.; Biester, H. E.; Schwarte, L. H.; and Hubbard, E. D. 1962. “Trichinella spiralis in Iowa Wildlife during the Years 1953 to 1961.” The Journal of Parasitology, 48:3:1, pp. 429-432.

If you think this website is valuable to you, please consider a contribution to support the continuation of the site.

True Crime: Joseph Edward Duncan III

Originally posted as a repost from the old site in 2008. I recently looked over this old piece and I was surprised at how good it was. I think it’s time for a re-run. Feel free to comment. Warning: long, runs to 28 pages.

On August 27, 2008, Joseph Edward Duncan III was sentenced to death by a federal court in Idaho after being charged with ten federal charges for the homicide of Dylan Groene, age 9, in Montana in 2005. He served 13 years on death row, but he died on March 28, 2001 of glioblastoma, a brain tumor, before he could be executed.

I don’t know any of the principals in this case, but Thrillseekerman knows Steve Groene and Chris Groene, Doperman knows Chris Groene and not Steve, and Sexmaniacman knows Steve Groene but not Chris. T-man went to elementary school with Steve Groene and his brother, Chris Groene. Steve Groene is the father of Shasta Groene, Dylan Groene and Slade Groene. I called Thrillseekerman, Doperman, and Sexmaniacman to get their recollections of these two guys, who I never really knew. Their recollections are at the end of the article.

Joseph E. Duncan III broke into the victims’ house on May 15, 2005, tied everyone up, and then bludgeoned Slade, 13, his mother Brenda, 39 and his stepfather, Mark McKenzie, 37 to death with a claw hammer. He took Dylan and Shasta so he could torture and molest them.

Police who came upon the scene were stunned by the sight. There was blood and gore everywhere, and the faces were nearly unrecognizable. One officer who came upon the scene was so shocked by the sight that he quit police work for months afterward. An APB went out for Shasta and Dylan.

Duncan took them in a stolen 2000 Red Cherokee jeep with Missouri license plates to a very remote campsite in the Lolo National Forest in Montana and kept them there for a few weeks, having sex with both of them and torturing Dylan. He made a video of the crimes, and the video was shown to jurors and those in the courtroom. He raped Shasta and forced Shasta and Dylan to perform sex acts on each other.

May 2005: Murder of Dylan Groene in the Lolo National Forest, Montana

“The devil is here, boy, the devil himself. The demon couldn’t do what the devil sent him to do so the devil came himself,” Duncan yells in one of the videos. “The devil likes to watch children suffer and cry.”

Duncan cracks sick jokes through the videos.

In one video, Duncan jokes, “They kidnapped me – they won’t let me leave.”

In another video, he cracks, “I shouldn’t be taking pictures of you pulling up your pants like that, young man – people might think I’m a pervert.”

In another video, Duncan asks the kids about their wishes. Dylan says he just wants to go home.

One video showed Duncan raping and torturing Dylan in various ways. At one point, he took Dylan into an old shack, where he forced Dylan to perform a sex on him and whipped him with a belt. Then he told Dylan to stand on a bench, hung a wire around his neck, and masturbated as he watched Dylan nearly die from hanging. “Then Jet took him down and said, ‘Wake up, wake up, wake up,'” Shasta Groene said in a police interview.

She said Dylan screamed when he woke up because he thought he had been in heaven. Duncan then offered the half-dead Dylan an opportunity to watch his “death” by hanging on tape. A little while later, he forced Shasta to drag the half-dead Dylan through the campfire with a rope around his neck, burning him horribly. Then Duncan “accidentally” shot Dylan in the stomach with a shotgun.

Dylan was alive and possibly could have lived for a few hours, though his guts were hanging out. Duncan decided that there was no way to save him, so he shot him in the head. It was later determined that he probably did not shoot Dylan “accidentally” after all. After Dylan was dead, Duncan chopped his body into little pieces and filmed himself forcing Shasta to throw the body parts on the fire. Then he forced Shasta to pick the body parts out of the fire and filmed that too.

Whew. Wow. Whoa.

This must set some sort of a record for evil, but I’m not sure. The FBI did say that this was the first time that they had ever heard of anyone murdering adults just to get at kids, so it does set a depravity record in that sense. Details of whatever he did to Shasta have not been made available yet, but she was definitely raped. Normally, in this sort of thing, the name of the living kid, Shasta, would be kept secret, but her name was already out there as an APB Amber Alert, so the cat was out of the bag.

I guess you are wondering why no one heard all this mess up in the mountains. The makeshift campsite is at the end of a very remote logging road. It’s a one-hour drive down a terrible road to get to the remote site at the bottom of a cliff. It seems like hardly anyone ever goes there.

There are a lot of remote places out in the Western forests where you can stay for weeks at a time and not see another human. One article said the video was shot at a cabin, but I think it was just a campsite. They also went to various other campsites and drove long distances while Duncan bragged to Dylan and Shasta about killing the kids’ Mom, brother, and stepdad.

July 2, 2005: Arrested in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho with Shasta Groene

Later, on July 2, 2005, Duncan went back to a Denny’s restaurant with Shasta in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, where she was immediately spotted by a resident who went in and told the manager who then wisely called 9-11. It was 1:30 AM and the cops pulled in with their lights off. Duncan saw the cops and took Shasta into the bathroom with him. He came out later and the police quickly surrounded the table and asked him to come outside. Shasta was taken back to her father her Mom and stepfather were dead.

Steve was briefly considered as a suspect but then they cleared him. They told him that he failed a polygraph, but lots of innocents do. They also suspected Steve’s eldest son, 18. They gave him a polygraph also and told him he failed too. Good thing neither one gave a fake confession in the midst of those interrogations.

The son was also into drugs – I bet meth – had a significant criminal record, and was most recently in jail for burglary. He said that that imprisonment was going to make him go straight.

Brenda Groene and Mark McKenzie were also drug users, but they were primarily recreational users. Brenda was a good mother. Initially, drugs were thought to be involved in the murders. Meth and pot were found in the systems of both Brenda and Mark. The couple ran with biker types who are in abundance in this area. Brenda had a criminal record for possession of drug paraphernalia and had served time for this offense.

Robert Roy Lutner was an original suspect in the case since he had a criminal record for relatively minor offenses and owed Mark and Brenda $2,000. They thought he killed them over the financial dispute. Further, he had visited them on the evening of Sunday the 15th, when the murders occurred. He turned himself in immediately, passed a polygraph, and was let go.

After he took the kids, Duncan was spotted in a sporting goods store with them in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, asking for directions to Libby, Montana. An APB went out but they were nowhere to be found.

Soon before he was caught, a video camera caught Duncan and Shasta entering what looks like a 7-11 about 40 miles outside of Coeur D’Alene. The girl looks mad and has her arms folded angrily across her chest. They buy something, get back in a red jeep, and leave. This footage was not discovered until later. Soon afterward, they were caught at the Denny’s in Coeur D’Alene.

Police discovered that the man was Joseph Edward Duncan III, a 43 year old fugitive sex offender from Fargo, North Dakota. He had recently been charged with molesting a 7 year old boy he knew who lived near him. He was born, one of five in a military family, in Fort Bragg, Virginia, in 1963. His parents soon moved to Tacoma, Washington, where he grew up. He was described as lonely and displaced in high school, especially after his parents’ divorce in 1979. He soon dropped out of high school. He engaged in sex at age 8 with two of his sisters. They apparently initiated it. What this had to do with his later offenses, I have no idea.

1975: Age 12, Arrested in Tacoma, Washington for Rape of a 5 Year Old Boy

He committed his first serious offense at age 12, when he raped a 5 year old boy, but he was not caught. In this way, he resembles Ted Bundy, who probably committed his first homicide of an eight-year-old girl who delivered the papers in his neighborhood at age 14. Bundy was never charged with this offense.

1978: age 15, Arrested in Tacoma, Washington for Rape of a 9 Year Old Boy

By age 15, he was charged with raping a 9 year old boy and sent to juvey. There he admitted that he had bound and raped six boys already.

1979: Age 16, Had Already Raped 13 Young Boys in Tacoma, Washington

He later said had already raped 13 younger boys by the time he was 16.

1980: Age 17 Arrested in Tacoma, Washington for Auto Theft

The following year, he was arrested for stealing a car.

1980: Age 17, Sentenced in Tacoma, Washington to 20 Years in Prison for Rape of a 14 Year Old Boy at Gunpoint

At age 17, he was arrested, charged and sentenced to 20 years in prison (apparently as an adult) for raping a 14 year old boy at gunpoint. The tortures that he put the boy through were similar to those seen on the Dylan Groene tape.

At the time, he was diagnosed as a psychopath, or antisocial personality disorder under the current rubric. In my opinion, knowing little about his upbringing, he is a pure psychopath. This condition is largely genetic. They are just born bad from seemingly Day One. This condition is impossible to treat, though some of them burn out and often descend in alcoholism and depression in their 40’s. Duncan is clearly not one of those.

He was paroled 14 years later at age 33 and sent to a halfway house in Seattle. A man named David Woelfert had testified at the parole board that Duncan was no threat whatsoever. He had loaned Duncan $3,000 and had found a place for him at the halfway house. Woelfert was also homosexual, and for a while, Duncan and Woelfert had a gay relationship. It looks like Woelfert was conned too. In 1996, Duncan was released from the halfway house.

1996: Sentenced in Seattle, Washington to One Month for Parole Violation

Almost immediately after his release from the halfway house, he violated parole by using marijuana and possessing a firearm. He was given 30 days and released.

July 6, 1996: Disappearance and Subsequent Murders of Carmen Cubias, 9, and Sammiejo White, 11, in Seattle, Washington

Apparently soon afterwards, 9-year-old Carmen Cubias and her 11-year-old half-sister, Sammiejo White, went missing from the motel where they were staying with their homeless family. A while before, Duncan was living only three blocks away from the motel where they vanished. These girls later turned up dead, and they were definitely killed by Duncan.

The girls were last seen by their 16-year-old brother at 8:30 pm on July 6, 1996 after they left the Crest Motel in Seattle, where they were staying with older and younger siblings and their mother. The girls were used to be out at all hours and knew their way around the neighborhood very well. They said they were going to the Taco Time where they were going to bum some spare change so they could eat and get some money for a pack of cigarettes for their brother. Apparently they never made it.

It turns out that Duncan has confessed to Shasta Groene that he killed two little girls in Seattle. He made the same confession to investigators, but he said he did not know their names. At the time of their disappearance, Duncan was living and working in Bothell, Washington, where the girls’ bones were found almost two years later in February, 1998, by a transient staying in an abandoned barn. They had both been murdered violently, but the details could not be ascertained. But both of their skulls had been crushed.

After Duncan was arrested for the Idaho killings, a woman came forward and said that she had worked at the Quality Food Mart in Bothell that summer. That summer she repeatedly saw a man she now says was Duncan come into the store to buy stuff accompanied by a frightened little girl, who she now identifies as Carmen Cubias. Once again, we see that Duncan kept his victim alive for a long time, molesting and possibly torturing them before killing them.

When talking to investigators, Duncan revealed enough details of the crimes, without confessing, to convince the cops that he killed the two girls. After he confessed, his lawyer convinced him to clam up about any other crimes he may have committed.

March 26, 1997: Disappearance and Murder of Deborah Palmer, 7, in Oak Harbor, Washington

On March 26, 1997, Deborah Palmer, age 7, disappeared on her way to school in Oak Harbor, Washington, about 50 miles away from Seattle. Palmer disappeared while walking the two blocks from her Kettle Street apartment home to school.

Duncan had an appointment in Seattle to take a polygraph test at an unknown time. Oak Harbor would have been a 1 1/2 hour drive away. Palmer may have been killed in Deception Pass State Park, near where her body washed up.

The week before, around March 19, Duncan had tested positive for marijuana, which would have violated his parole. Eleven days later, he quit his Bothell job, stole his girlfriend’s car, and fled his Seattle home for California to visit his father in Pahrump, Nevada. That was the very same day that Deborah Palmer’s body washed up on a Pacific Ocean beach seven miles away from Oak Harbor, and the story was all over the news.

She had been raped and strangled. The previous day, Deborah’s backpack and jacket were found at a gravel pit. There is no direct evidence linking Duncan to this homicide. There are also suspicions that a family member was involved.

April 1997: Disappearance and Murder of Anthony Martinez, 10, in Beaumont, California

After he fled to California, he killed again. This time, he took off from his Dad’s house in Vista and went to Beaumont, California, where he approached 10 year old Anthony Martinez and his brother who were playing in alley behind their home. He asked them to help find a lost cat, and they declined. Duncan then put a knife to Anthony’s throat and shoved him into a white car.

On April 19, Anthony’s nude body was found in a shallow grave 110 miles away in the desert near Indio, California. He had been raped and beaten to death and his skull had been crushed.

After his arrest in the Idaho killings, Duncan confessed to interrogators that he had killed a little boy in California. He also quite closely resembled the composite drawing of the suspect in the Martinez case. Cops then looked into the Martinez case and amazingly found a match for a thumbprint on the duct tape used to bind Anthony’s body and Duncan’s prints.

August 27, 1997: Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Parole Violation in Kansas City, Missouri

In May, Duncan was back in Northern California. On June 2, he met Dr. Richard Wacksman (see below) at a coffeehouse in San Francisco. At this point, he seemed to have been living on the streets. Four months later, on August 27, 1997, Duncan was arrested by the FBI at his sister’s house in Kansas City, Missouri for a parole violation and sent to prison for three years.

At the hearing for the parole violation, a Fargo, North Dakota doctor, Dr. Richard Wacksman, testified that Duncan was not dangerous anymore and that upon his release, he could stay at Wacksman’s home in Fargo. The parole board disagreed and sent him away. Upon his release on July 21, 2000, he moved to Fargo, North Dakota, but I believe it was not long before he started killing again.

After his release, in 2000, he visited Wacksman at his home in Fargo. The neighbors found out about it and confronted Wacksman. Duncan did not return to Wacksman’s home, and Wacksman soon moved to Florida. Duncan then visited Wacksman numerous times at his Florida home, where Duncan liked to scuba dive.

I do not think this Wacksman fellow is a bad guy. Psychopaths are often very charming and have the ability to convince all sorts of decent people that they are really ok, including Dr. Wacksman. However, it should be noted that Wacksman, while married and with family, was bisexual. It seems certain that Wacksman and Duncan had a homosexual relationship.

After he moved to Fargo, Duncan began attending North Dakota State University there, working on a BA in Computer Science. He would have graduated in May 2005, but he decided to go on a homicide spree instead. At the university, he worked in software development for both the college and a local business called iCat.

He also worked as a teaching assistant at Edmonds Community College where he taught introductory programming courses. He frequented at least one Korean Personals site where he said he was looking for “something more than just sex.” At the time, he was also taking karate lessons at the university (photo from his karate class in Spring 2003). While Duncan was living in Fargo from 2000-2005, I believe that he did not stop killing.

February 12, 2001: Disappearance and Probable Murder of Steven Earl Kraft, Jr., 12, in Benton Township, Michigan

On February 12, 2001, Steven Earl Kraft, Jr., age 12, disappeared while walking his dogs between 8-9 PM about 1/2 block from his home. The dogs were found later, but Steven is still missing. Duncan may have been involved in this kidnapping and probable homicide.

On April 21, 2001, Duncan set up his Jazzi-Jet gay website on the Pridesites gay website. Although the links have been deleted, on one page he was shown in a black dress and makeup talking about how much he liked to get fucked in the ass. Oh, well.

Duncan talked about how much gay sex he had in Walla Walla Prison, getting screwed by 50 different guys in there, getting gangbanged once by seven guys, being the “queen of the prison,” and being owned by a great big Black inmate named “Al”, all while posing in suggestive gay poses. On another deleted photo, Jazzi-Jet was once again done up like a woman. In one picture, he was masturbating, but you couldn’t see that very well. He touched up one of the pics to make it look like he has breasts.

On February 12, 2002, Duncan created July 12, 2002: Disappearance and Murder of Russell Turcotte, 19, in Grand Forks, North Dakota

Russell Turcotte, age 19, a Turtle Mountain Chippewa, was last seen at a truck stop in Grand Forks, North Dakota, on July 12, 2002, after spending the night with friends in Fargo, North Dakota. He was returning to his home in Wolf Point, Montana from a Rainbow Gathering in Michigan.

Surveillance cameras have now revealed that Duncan was at that truck stop hours after Turcotte was there. Turcotte was hitchhiking with a backpack home on a desolate stretch of Highway 2 west of Grand Forks at around 2 AM. I believe he was picked up by Duncan and taken to a side road near Grand Forks Air Force Base. He was probably raped there. He was then taken to Devils Lake, 90 miles west of Grand Forks, where his partially nude body was dumped and covered with brush. His possessions vanished, probably tossed into one of the area’s many rivers and lakes. His skull had been crushed.

The previous day, his mother had wired him some money. He was living with a girlfriend and running low on cash. Months later, in November 2002, his skeleton was discovered by a rancher in a clump of trees.

Objections have been made to the notion that Duncan committed this crime. First is that he would have had to drive 85 miles north from Fargo to Grand Forks and then another 90 miles west to dump the body. However, I believe that since 1997, Duncan had started killing quite a ways away from where he lived. His first two killings seem to have pretty close to where he lived. The Seattle girls were abducted while Duncan was living in Bothell, 20 miles away.

Deborah Palmer (assuming he killed her) was killed in Oak Harbor, 30 miles from his home in Bothell, and her body was found nearby. He’s clearly capable of driving 80 miles away from his home to kill someone. Similarly, Beaumont was about 85 miles away from his father’s house in Vista where Duncan was staying.

Anyway, the surveillance camera had Duncan at the truck stop within hours of when Turcotte was there, so the distance question seems to be ruled out. Furthermore, July 12 was a Friday, so Turcotte was last seen on a Friday night. I believe that Duncan picked him up hitchhiking about 2 AM on the morning of Saturday, July 13 and killed him soon afterward. At some point he drove 90 miles east to dump the body.

Duncan was a college student at this time and was probably working too. It’s certainly possible that he had the whole weekend off. He had lots of free time and was always traveling to the Lakes Country in Minnesota to go scuba diving. Also, Turcotte’s skull had been crushed in the same manner that Anthony Martinez, Sammiejo White, Carmen Cubias, Slade Groene and Mark McKenzie had been dispatched.

Another question about the Turcotte killing is that Turcotte seems old for Duncan’s tastes. However, it has been pointed out that the 19 year old looked very young for his age. A photo of him taken before his death seemed to belie that, but another picture taken by his girlfriend shortly before he died showed him very thin, unhealthy, and quite young-looking.

Hunter Bear, an American Indian retired university professor and leftwing activist, had a webpage up about Turcotte. Here is a description of who he thought the killer is, written in 2003 before anyone knew about Duncan:

I continue to feel that Russ’ killer is an Anglo, maybe in his late 30s or early 40s, a so-termed “professional” person with a quite good, reassuring kind of car and out-of-state license plates. It’s obvious that he is a criminal psychopath.

Not bad, huh? At the time he wrote that, Duncan was 40 years old (!), White, and though not a professional, he could certainly come off as one. It seems like he liked to drive nice cars too. About the out of state plates, I have no idea. Hunter Bear said that the cops did not try very hard to find the Turcotte’s killer, at one point saying that they had no interest in a routine store surveillance camera tape that filmed Turcotte at the last place he was seen.

Hence, the tape was destroyed. Hunter Bear made a good case that the population and the police in North Dakota and Idaho were very racist towards American Indians. We don’t see much of it out here in California, but it seems to be more of a big deal back there. Some people are still looking at Seattle, Tacoma, or Portland as the connection between the killer and Turcotte, but I am pretty certain that this is a Duncan crime.

This is a Web Archive cache of the original Jet Gazette, Jet’s own online magazine that he made all about…himself! This page is dated July 29, 2002, and that would have been about 17 days after Turcotte was killed.

March 26, 2003: Disappearance and Murder of Dalton Mesarchik, 7, in Streator, Illinois

On March 26, 2003, Dalton Mesarchik, 7, of Streator, Illinois vanished from the front yard of his home. His body was found the next day in creek. His skull had been crushed with a hammer. That’s Duncan’s style. In June 2003, Duncan began going on trips to Minnesota and Michigan to scuba dive. He went on dives all summer.

On October 3, 2003, Duncan was visited by three police officers who accuse him of harassing women downtown. The women knew who he is from the Sex Offender database, and they had photos of him. He was accused of repeatedly asking them out and not going away when they told him to. That doesn’t sound like much of a crime to me. The cops said they knew who he was and they watched him all the time. Guess they did not watch him enough. He wrote about this incident later on his blog, The Fifth Nail.

Here is the final edition of the Jet Gazette, with photos of his scuba diving trips and videos that he made.

February 15, 2004: Disappearance and Probable Murder of Justin Phillip Edwards, 13, in Casper, Wyoming

Between late February 14 and early February 15, 2004, Justin Phillip Edwards, 13, disappeared. He was living at R. L Mills Home, a state-run facility, located at 116 East “H” Street in Casper, Wyoming since the summer of 2003. He was 5′ tall and weighed only 100 pounds and was retarded. He had the mind of a 6 year old. In his blog entry of February 16, Duncan said he went skiing for the first time that weekend, alone. Some think he may have been involved in Edwards’ disappearance.

July 3, 2004 Molestation of a Boy, 7 and Attempted Molestation of Another in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota

On July 3, 2004, Duncan molested a 7 yr old boy and tried to molest another boy at a school playground. He had a video camera with him. He was not caught until later.

March 4, 2005 Charged in Minnesota for the Molestation Incidents

In March 4, 2005, Duncan was charged with molesting a 7 year old boy and attempting to molest the boy’s young friend in Detroit Lakes, Becker County, Minnesota. On April 5, a judge set his bail at $15,000. This was the July 2004 incident above.

The same day, a Fargo businessman, Joe Crary, wrote a check for that amount to the court and bailed out Duncan. Crary said he befriended Duncan when they both rode their bikes on bike trails in Fargo. Somehow, Duncan gave off the impression of being polite, soft-spoken, and seemed sincere about wanting to turn his life around. Duncan also seemed sincere that he was innocent of the Minnesota charges.

I will never understand how psychopaths fool people like this, but they do it all the time. The ability to con and lie with a straight face in these people is amazing. Crary is now maligned, but I feel he was just another good person that this psychopath conned. It should be noted, however, that Crary is apparently a homosexual who had a sexual relationship with Duncan beginning in early January 2004.

After being bailed out, Duncan made plans for his crime spree. He purchased night vision goggles and a video camcorder at a Walmart. He also purchased a shotgun, shells, and a claw hammer. On April 15, 2005, he rented a 2005 red Jeep Cherokee in St. Paul, Minnesota.

After the rental agreement was up, he never turned it back in, and on May 4, auto theft charges were filed against him. On the same day, the key tag to the stolen car was found in Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area in Wyoming, so Duncan must have been here at some point in his travels. Between those two dates, Duncan traveled all the way to the far southwest portion of Missouri, where it meets Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas. There, on April 27, he stole license plates off a vehicle and placed them on his vehicle.

Then he continued his travels. No one knows where he went during this period, but I believe that he was in Spokane using GPS to stalk young children at a preschool, Kindermusik, which has kids from toddlers up to age 7. While in flight, a warrant was issued for his arrest in Fargo for failure to appear in a court date stemming from the Minnesota case. He stopped in the Wolf Lodge area eight miles east of Coeur d’Alene. This post from Duncan’s horrifying blog, The Fifth Nail, was somehow posted from Wolf Lodge just four days before he committed the Idaho crimes.

May 13, 2005 Murders of Brenda Groene, Slade Groene, and Mark McKenzie in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho

On May 12 or 13, he ended up on Frontage Road at the home where the crimes occurred. He spent the next two or three days scoping out the house, and on Sunday night, he entered the home with gloves, night vision goggles, a claw hammer, and a shotgun.

He pointed the gun and Brenda, Mark, and Slade and tied them up or forced them to tie each other up. Brenda Groene called Shasta down to the living room from where she had been sleeping. Dylan also came downstairs. Duncan quickly hustled Shasta and Dylan outside and into his van. Then he went back in to kill the others. With blows of the claw hammer, he dispatched them.

Shasta heard Mark scream, then she saw Slade try to run out of the house, wounded. He was hauled back in and dispatched. The kids in the van did not witness the killings, but Duncan later told them how he had killed her family. He told her that the name of the hammer was a Fatmax and she learned to call him “Jet” for his initials, Joseph Edward Duncan.

After his arrest, Duncan started blogging again with the help of others from inside prison. The blog is here. Here is an undated picture of Jet. Here are two awesome time lines (Timeline One, Timeline Two) on Duncan’s life on the great The Cellar blog which is devoted to this case. This is a website Duncan made, the usual whining stuff about how terribly society treats convicts.

I interviewed my friends Thrillseekerman, Doperman, and Sexmaniacman about Steve Groene, the father of the three child victims and Chris Groene, his brother. All these guys, Doperman, Thrillseekerman, Sexmaniacman, grew up together with me in Southern California, and we all ran with the same crowd. They’re scattered to the five winds now, but all still keep in touch by phone and Internet.

I can’t say where they are, but they’re all still in the USA! I grew up with all of them, but I don’t remember Steve Groene or Chris Groene. I think the Groenes and I knew some of the same people, but I don’t remember the Groenes specifically.

Thrillseekerman shared his reminiscences about the Groenes:

Hi Bob, this case really wears on my mind. It’s amazing that I know this guy, and I know his brother, Chris, too. I haven’t seen Steve in 27 years, and I haven’t seen Chris in probably 25-26 years. Doperman knows Chris but I don’t think he knows Steve.

We all grew up together, Steve, Chris, Sexmaniacman, Doperman, and me, Thrillseekerman! And all the rest of the gang! And you, Bob! Ha ha! I heard about the case and saw the strange name, Groene, and wondered if it was him.

I saw his pic and knew it was him, though at the time I had not seen him in 24 years. He looked like he’d had a hard life; I don’t know if there is any better way to put it. His sister now says he already had cancer at the time. I don’t know enough to comment. Life’s hard on all of us in one way or another. Hang in there, Steve!

Steve was into drugs when I knew him, but then so was I! Ha ha! We all were! Ha ha! I think I went to grade school with the guy in Orange County and he was in my grade, but I’m not entirely sure.

I never really knew him that well, but I went to see him play with a blues band at a party in an industrial park one night in 1980. He’s a damn fine blues musician and I have good memories of that party. I was drinking Heinekens and later on smoking some dope.

Later I got to know Steve better, and somehow in 1981 I was buying Thai weed from him. I realize that sounds bad, but I was a dealer too! For many years! Ha ha. All of us – my friends and I – were drug users and dealers for many years. Ha ha! Plus, Steve sold me some damn good Thai weed too! Eat your hearts out, puritans!

Steve was working in the carnivals, traveling all around as a carny, was in with the biker crowd, and he was doing methamphetamine, but I don’t think he was doing very much. He was just a recreational user. Back in those days, the only people doing meth were bikers and carnies, people like that. Now meth is this huge deal.

He used to come over once in a while, mostly to sell me pot. I was just a pothead at the time. That’s all I know about Steve Groene and dope. Pothead, occasional meth user. But that was Summer 1981, and I never saw him again. I won’t guess about the rest of his life.

I remember he came over once. I was living in an apartment and there was this young guy staying there. He was really mentally ill and he needed a place to stay. He was living on the couch. Ha ha! There was a guitar case owned by this guy, a great guitarist who was going through a manic episode.

There were cigarette burns all up and down the case, and I pointed to them, shocked, then to the guy in the midst of the manic episode. Steve gave a smile, of sadness,  wisdom, truth, and life itself. And then he said, “That’s the blues, man.” That’s right, Steve, you got it, man. The blues is life, and life is the blues. Ain’t that so true now, though? Damn.

I realize that I may be trashing his reputation here, but Steve has already admitted to being a heavy drug user as a younger man. Besides, what’s wrong with being a doper? Ha ha! I’m 50 years old, and I’m still a stoner! By the way, can you get me any good pot? Ha ha!

I want to point out that Steve Groene was always the nicest guy to me, a real warm and kindhearted person, always was. I value that, and I’ll always remember him for that.

I also knew Chris Groene, too.

That handsome face, beautiful long hippie surfer hair, and words of honey – no wonder the girls ate him up! Ha ha! Chris was a doper too, a pothead! Ha ha! We all were! He was a juvenile delinquent as a kid, but hey, a lot of us were. Even me! Ha ha! A nice, friendly, charming delinquent. I think Chris was probably a better thief than I was, though. Ha ha! I never was good at stealing.

Chris was also a real nice and warmhearted guy the whole time I knew him. I guess he outgrew that delinquent stuff. I still saw him later, into the early 1980’s, and he was still a kind, warmhearted person. I understand he’s got a really good job now.

I see in a recent pic Steve’s got himself a really nice looking new girlfriend. And he’s still a blues musician, which he always was. He’s a damn good musician, too. I’m amazed that Steve has appeared to hold up pretty well in all this. Two of his kids and his ex-wife were brutally murdered, and his daughter was kidnapped and molested. But in the last pic I saw of him, he seems to be holding up. I think I would have snapped a long time ago.

All of us, me, Doperman, Chris, Steve, and all our friends, and you, Bob! Ha ha! We were bad boys, rebels, longhairs, surfers, stoners, mavericks, and trillseekers. Badass middle class dopesmoking White boys! Ha ha! We were White Punks On Dope ! Ha ha! Those were the days, man.

I’ll always remember Steve and Chris Groene. Whatever else they’ve been in their interesting lives, they were never mean. They both have hearts as big as the ocean. You don’t see that a lot in this world. Even, with the ravages of time and an unknowable future, if my heart becomes cold and hard, there will always be a tiny warm place there set aside just for Steve and Chris Groene.

Steve and Chris Groene, presente!

Doperman reminisced about Chris Groene:

I was working at the local elementary school as a janitor when I was 16. It was 1974. One night Chris, then age 15, came up to me and wanted me to give him access to the auditorium so Chris could steal a microphone. I guess Chris was a musician too? He almost talked me into it, but I eventually chickened out.

Chris was more of a charming type, and he had natural good looks, really long hair, and he got all kinds of girls and women. He could charm the poison right out of a cobra. This dude had style, man! He was one slick guy! I liked Chris Groene, Bob.

He was always really good to me, even when he was trying to convince me to participate with him in a juvenile crime! I think he grew out of that delinquent stuff, and I hear he has a great job now. You go, Chris! A ghost from your past!

Sexmaniacman recalled Steve Groene. The only recollection he had was one night 30 years ago when he was out of mind on LSD:

“I remember one time, it was the summer of 1978, it was around 10 PM, and I was flying on LSD! I think I was with my buddy Craig L. Anyway, we were headed to this party at Alan B’s place. We came to the street where the party was, and there were cops there! I was on acid, driving a car, and I looked right into this cop’s eyes! With my huge saucer eyeballs! Scary!

Well, we went inside, and I was flying on fucking LSD! Oh man! Steve Groene was there! He had this big, friendly, warm smile, enough to light up the whole room, like always. It was Alan B’s party, an Italian guy. A hippie and an acidhead! Ha ha!

Well, I walked in and there’ was this beautiful Mexican chick, about 20 years old, sitting on the couch. She was kinda big, but not too big. Just big enough, baby! Lotsa curves! Well, she was looking at me the whole time. I was kinda looking back, but I didn’t really know what to do.

So after a while Steve Groene said, way too loud, “Hey! Sexmaniacman! Why don’t you get her a beer, Sexguy? She wants you to get her a beer, Sexman!” He was smiling and laughing, but he was also like, “You idiot! Pick up on the chick! She likes you! Go for it, dummy! Like, duh!” So I go and get her a Heineken. I forget what happened after that. I fucked up; I don’t think I even got her number. I was so stupid sometimes.

Later that night, I was in Alan’s bedroom. I told him I was on LSD. He said, “Hey, Sexmaniacman! Let’s do some more acid and go to Black Star Canyon and fry all night!” I opened up a box full of blue LSD tablets. But we never did it.

I love Steve Groene, Bob, I really do. He’s a good person, and his heart is solid gold. He ran with a rough crowd, and he looked like a pretty tough guy, but he was good people all the way. A shout out to Steve Groene! Blast from the past!

Demographics and Especially Population Movements Spell Doom for the Republican Party

Present demographics in the US means that demographics is not on the side of the Republicans. Whites, the base of the Republican Party, continue to decline every year while the Hispanic population grows.

Even more important than that is a general movement of blue staters to red states and almost no movement in the other direction. Show me one red state that is losing population because it’s people are moving to blue states. There’s no such thing.

There’s more going on than that. Blue states have a far larger population than red states.

Virginia turned blue because Northerners kept moving down there for high paying jobs.

Georgia and North Carolina are on the same track for the same reason, and both may well in fact have gone over. Northeasterners have flooded to the Research Triangle in North Carolina, and Atlanta has been attracting floods of Northeasterners for a long time. The Republicans just stole a Senate seat in North Carolina due to mass election fraud, otherwise the Democrat would have won.

Florida is the only state resisting the trend towards blue due to continuous injections of rightwing Latin American immigrants and their offspring into the state.

New Hampshire has gone blue, probably due to invasion from more liberal NE states.

Pennsylvania is already history for the Republicans the same reason, mostly liberals moving out of the New York-New Jersey metropolitan area into the Philadelphia area.

Ohio and Iowa are on tied, but they have been tied for a long time, or at least Ohio has been.

Ohio swung hard to the right in 2016 or Trump in line with working class Whites voting Republican. But it swung back pretty hard in the other direction in 2020. In the last election, the electorate voted 5

Iowa was a Democratic state that recently went red as part of a trend of working class White states going red, similar to Ohio, which it resembles. As in Ohio though, it swung back hard blue in the 2020 election. I’m convinced Democrats won the Senate seat there in 2020.

Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are all long gone over to the Democrats despite massive election fraud on the part of Republicans. The legislatures of Michigan and especially Wisconsin remain in Republican hands due to massive gerrymandering by Republicans. In order to Democrats to win 5

Missouri and South Carolina are both trending blue, slowly but surely. Republicans only won by three points in South Carolina last election. I’m not sure why either state is going over unless it’s part of a general trend. Missouri used to be the bellweather state, but it went hard Right with the movement of the White working class in that direction in recent years, so it’s no longer a weathervane state. However, it swung somewhat back towards blue in 2020.

Colorado and New Mexico are solid blue now. In Colorado, this is due to mass influx of Californians to the state. New Mexico’s been fairly blue for some time and has only gotten more so.

Nevada’s pretty much gone for the Republicans for the same reason – Californians moving in. It’s been a traditionally conservative Republican state, but with so many Californians moving into the Reno and especially Las Vegas areas, it seems gone to the Republicans, although it’s still a bit close there.

Arizona appears barely blue now for the same reason – Californians flooding in to Tuscon and especially Phoenix – but it’s very much on the verge, and the legislature is still red, probably due to gerrymandering.

Blue states are getting bluer. I can’t think of one blue state that is becoming less blue.

Beyond that and even more ominous for Republicans is that almost all red states are getting less red with time. The average heavily-red state went a full ten percentage points blue in the last election, from Wyoming to West Virginia to Alabama. That’s terrifying from a Republican point of view.

The future looks ominous indeed for the Republican Party. The only way they can stay in power will be by stealing elections, which they are already good at, or moving to the left, which they almost cannot do because if the Republican Party moves left, it won’t be the Republican Party anymore.

It’s not so much racial demographics as mass movement from blue states to red states and almost zero movement in the other direction.

Alt Left: Face It: The Latest Riots are Multiracial Leftwing Antiracist Riots

Alpha Unit: I am responding to this narrative that all this destruction and violence is a “Black” thing. That’s not the whole story.

I would agree with you that the riots are not all a Black thing. Head on over to American Renaissance and see how these are being portrayed as Black riots. Well, there are Black riots in this country, but these don’t really qualify. In some cities, in these riots it is mostly Blacks rioting. Those are cities in the South like Atlanta, Louisville, Birmingham, and some other places that elude me at the moment. I believe there were Whites in the crowd in Atlanta though.

In general, the rioters were a mix of young Black, Hispanic, and White men, mostly antisocial and living on the edge of society, most without decent or any jobs or much to lose. I saw many young men rioting right alongside the Blacks. The Whites looked like skate punk and Antifa types. A lot of Whites were holding up BLM signs and chanting BLM slogans.

In LA, most of the rioters tended to be Hispanics.

In Las Vegas, the crowd was very mixed, mostly Hispanics with some Whites, even including White women, with a few Blacks in the mix too. The white rioters seemed to have more of the fancier materials you need to start a riot.

In Minneapolis, many of those smashing and setting things on fire were young White men, often skate punk types. In some cases, they worked right alongside inner city type Blacks. However, I did see an interview with a Minneapolis Black gang member who said that all of the gangs in the city (mostly Black) were working together in these riots to cause mayhem even though a lot of them were enemies normally.  So there is also a criminal gang element, but that shouldn’t be surprising.

The riots seem quite multiracial in New York, but it was hard to get a breakdown. There were a lot of Blacks but also some Whites.

There were many Whites in the Washington DC riots but also a lot of Blacks of course.

Rioters in Seattle and Portland tended to be young antifa type Whites.

Chicago seemed to have a lot of Blacks, but there were also Whites mixed in.

The truth is that these for the most part are multiracial riots. Yes, many rioters are Black, but there are quite a few young White and Hispanic men in the mix.

I will say one thing. It seems like most of the looting is being done by Blacks. I did see a few Whites looting in Minneapolis and New York. Hispanics are known to loot but I’m not aware of how many of them did. In the Rodney King riots, the looters were heavily Black and Hispanics. However, when they moved up to Hollywood, a lot of more or less regular young White men got in on, targeting high end items.

I was happy to see the stores of the rich looted and smashed up though. That’s who they should be targeting.

Looting does tend to be a Black thing. Hispanics don’t seem to loot as much, and it seems like a lot of Whites, even White rioters, are averse to looting. A White rioter will smash stuff up, set a building on fire but then refuse to loot other buildings. Not sure why that is, but I think Antifa doesn’t like looting. Plus a lot of Whites are afraid to steal or perhaps they even consider it morally wrong.

Alpha Unit: And leftwing people are not delusional for thinking there are rightwing people out there seeking to capitalize on these protests.

Correct, but I am seeing little evidence of this.

Three Bugaloo Boys went to a demonstration and tried to turn it violent, but the crowd did not buy it. Further, the Bugaloos are a mixed bag. Yes most are rightwingers, often racist ones. However, there are other Bugaloos who are on the left and a number of them are antiracists. So the Bugaloos are just a group of “tear it down” folks who are insurrectionists against the government for a variety of reasons – right, left, racist and antiracist. The only thing that unites them is the desire to smash it up and take down the state.

I am watching leftwing subs on Reddit, and all they ever say about these riots is that it’s White Nationalist racists and undercover police instigators who are setting off the  riots or even doing most of the damage. I went to the page of one liberal, and he said all the destruction was being done by White nationalists and undercover police instigators. He also said Russia was behind the riots.

Black people don’t want to think it’s their people rioting. That’s a typical human Dindu reaction. They are correct, the Black rioters are having a significant  amount of White and Hispanic help. That’s the better response. Pawning it off on cops and rightwing racists ain’t gonna cut it.

Leftwingers and antiracists object to the notion that these are leftwing antiracist riots. Once again this is the typical human Dindu reaction. Dindu reactions tend to be more of a human response than a Black cope. People don’t like to take responsibility when their group does bad things, so they blame it all on outsiders or better yet, their enemies.

Rightwingers are notorious for this but as we can see, leftwingers and antiracists are not immune to it either. The defenses are Denial and Projection. “Blaming other people” isn’t just something pathological people do. Most people go through life blaming other people in some way or other. I don’t object to blaming other people, but I think the less you do it, the better.

But that’s exactly what they are – these are indeed leftwing antiracist riots. And antifa-type and BLM (neither of which are organizations) elements do appear significant. The young Whites may be apolitical, or if they vote at all, they vote Bernie. The Blacks and Hispanics just vote straight Democratic if they even vote at all. I think a lot of these rioters are apolitical in the sense that they are outside of organized politics and might not even vote.

Alt Left: The Assassination of Democratic Congressman Paul Wellstone (2002)

The Assassination of Democratic Congressman Paul Wellstone (2002)

Or you get Wellstoned, the treatment given to progressive Minnesota Congressman Paul Wellstone,who was murdered by during the Bush Administration by Dick Cheney’s Deep State thugs who tampered with his airplane, causing it to crash. Former California senator Barbara Boxer admitted to people privately that she thinks Cheney had Wellstone killed.

This crap goes on more often than you think. We don’t have any kind of democracy here as long as the Deep State and the Oligarchs run things.

English as a Genocidal Language Attacking Other Tongues Spoken in the Anglosphere – USA

English has had a genocidal affect on the other languages spoken here, but many non-English languages still survive and some are quite thriving.

Pennsylvania Dutch is still quite alive with 300,000 native speakers. I think is is just a dialect of Rhenish German. It’s actually two separate languages and they can’t understand each other.

There are many other languages in the US that have been taken out by English. Most of the Indian languages spoken here have been driven extinct or moribund by English. A few like Cherokee, Sioux, Navajo, Mohawk, Pueblo, some Alaskan languages, a couple of Indian languages of the US South, are still doing well.

Most of the others are in bad to very bad shape, often moribund with only 10 or fewer speakers, often elderly. Many others are extinct. However, quite a few of these languages have had a small number of middle aged to elderly speakers for the last 25 years, so the situation is somewhat stable at least at the moment.

Almost all Indian languages are not being  learned by children. But there are still children being raised speaking Cherokee, Navajo, Pueblo, Mohawk, and some Alaskan and Southern US Indian languages. Navajo is so difficult that when Navajo children show up at school, they still have  problems with Navajo. They often don’t get the  language in full until they are twelve.

However, there are revitalization efforts going on with many to most Indian languages, with varying amounts of success. Some are developing quite competent native speakers, often young people who learn the language starting at 18-20. I know that Wikchamni Yokuts has a new native speaker, a 23 year old man who learned from an old who is a native speaker. In California, there is a master apprentice program going on along these lines.

There are a number of preschool programs where elders try to teach the  languages to young children. I am not sure how well they are working. There are problems with funding, orthographies and mostly apathy that are getting in the way of a lot of these programs.

There are many semi-speakers. For instance in the tribe I worked with, many of the Indians knew at least a few words, and some of the leadership knew quite a few words. But they could hardly make a sentence.

Eskimo-Aleut languages are still widely spoken in Alaska. I know that Inuktitut is still spoken, and  there are children being raised in the language. Aleut is in poor shape.

Hawaiian was almost driven extinct but it was revived with a revitalization program. I understand that the language still has problems. I believe that there are Hawaiian medium schools that you can send your child to. There may be only ~10,000 fluent speakers but there are many more second language speakers with varying fluency.

There are actually some European based languages and creoles spoken in the US.  A noncontroversial one is Gullah, spoken on the islands of South Carolina. There may be less than 5,000 speakers, but the situation has been stable for 30-35 years. Speakers are all Black. It is an English creole and it is not intelligible with English at all.

There is at least one form of French creole spoken in Louisiana.  There is also an archaic form of French Proper called Continental French that resembles French from 1800. It has 2,000 speakers. Louisiana French Creole still has ~50,000 speakers. People worry about it but it has been stable for a long time. Many of the speakers are Black.

Texas German is really just a dialect of German spoken in Texas. There are only a few elderly speakers left.

There are a few Croatian languages spoken in the US that have diverged dramatically from the languages back home that they are now different languages. The status of these languages vary. Some are in good shape and others are almost dead. One of these is called Strawberry Hill Gorski Kotar Kaikavian spoken in Missouri. It is absolutely a full separate language and is no longer intelligible with the Gorski Kotar Kaikavian spoken back home.

There are other European languages spoken in the US, but they are not separate from those back home. Most are going out.

There are many Mandarin and especially Cantonese speakers in the US.

There are many Korean speakers in the US, especially in California.

There are a fair number of Japanese speakers in the US, mostly in California.

There are many speakers of Khmer, Lao, Hmong, and Vietnamese in the US. Most are in California but there are Hmong speakers in Minnesota also.

There are quite a few speakers of Arabic languages in the US. Yemeni, Syrian, and Palestinian Arabic are widely spoken. There are many in New York City, Michigan and California.

There are also some Assyrian speakers in  the US and there are still children being raised in Assyrian. Most are in California.

There are quite a few Punjabi and Gujarati speakers in the US now. We have many Punjabi speakers in my city.

There are quite a few Urdu speakers here. Most of all of these speakers are in California.

Obviously there are many Spanish speakers in the US. English is definitely not taking out Spanish. They are mostly in the Southwest, Florida, and New York City, but they are spreading out all across the country now.

There are a few Portuguese speakers in the US. All also speak English. They are mostly in California but some are back east around Massachusetts.

The Sicilian Italian spoken in the US by Italian immigrants is still spoken fairly widely to this day. It has diverged so much from the Sicilian back home that when they go back to Sicily, they are not understood. This is mostly spoken in large cities back east.

There are quite a few Armenian speakers in the US and children are still being raised in Armenian. Most are in California.

There are some Persian speakers in the US, but not a lot. Most of these are in California too.

All of these languages are the same languages as spoken back home.

Thread about the Police Shootings

This thread will include the two “killings of unarmed Black men by two White cops,” which includes the killing of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and the “terrorist shooting attack on Dallas Police” which killed five police and wounded seven others, done by a ex-US military Black militant armed with a sniper rifle and an automatic weapon who had obviously had good tactical training. First of all, to dispense with the usual bullshit and lies. These were not more cases of “White cops killing unarmed Black men.” In the case of Philando Castile, the cop was a Filipino, not a White man. I guess they are evil anti-Black racists too. I suppose their racism against Blacks is due to something called Filipino Supremacy, an epidemic and structural problem that runs all through US society. Second of all, neither of these men were unarmed. They were both packing! Yes, they were both armed with handguns. In the sad case of Castile, he actually a concealed carry permit, which is one more reason why these stupid permits should be handed out very judiciously and not like candy as they are now. In the case of the much worse behaving Alton Sterling, another Michael Brown-like “gentle giant” with a criminal record as long as a novella, he was also armed with a handgun, illegally as it turns out as he was breaking the law by carrying a handgun in public. Sterling also very seriously resisted arrest, and the police knew he had a gun. The fact that he had a gun on him, as in the sad case of Castile, was absolutely the main and probably only reason he got killed. So if you don’t want to get killed by cops and you’re a Black man, number one, don’t go out in public packing whether you have one of those Wild West style permits or not. I genuinely feel sorry for the cops in the Dallas case, and I don’t even like cops. In fact, I pretty much hate cop,s and as it turns out I have some very good reasons for feeling that way considering I have been arrested a couple of times, and my hatred of cops goes back to those incidents. But I realize that they have a job to do, and of course I support them in that job. Also if you stay away from them and have as little dealings with them as possible, cops will not be much of a problem in your life. Right now, criminals are a much worse problem in my life than cops. Cops barely even rate as an annoyance. Most of the time, I hardly even hate them, and I even like them or feel neutral about them. We can’t have people running around assassinating police officers. All you cop haters, let’s try an experiment. Let’s remove all the police from your city so you will be happy to be rid of those evil cops. You can guess what is going to happen to your city in the next several months, if it even lasts that long as a functioning metropolis. “We need cops, but they need to act better” is my position. Second point, this was not terrorism. It’s never terrorism to shoot cops, especially when they are armed and in uniform. You can argue that this guy was not a guerrilla, but that is exactly what he was in fact. This man was at war with the police. He was a one-man insurgency. And this anti-police violence is starting to look like an insurgency or guerrilla war. The abuse of this stupid term “terrorism” is truly unfortunate, but it is usually states who are the ones abusing the term. Any and all armed non-state actors and organizations are terrorists, bar none. Tell that to the Abraham Lincoln Brigades of the World War Two partisans in Europe and Asia. There are indeed terrorist groups who target civilian targets of no military significance, and that right there is the definition of terrorism to target a cop or any sort of soldier, off-duty or on. As expected, the White nationalists have heralded this as the onset of the glorious RAHOWA (racial holy war) that they always long for. And yes, they do long for this. Hang out on their fora long enough, and you will see it, even on the rather dainty American Renaissance site. Their glorious RAHOWA is not here, nor is it coming anytime soon. Sorry, guys. Maybe later? The case of Mr. Castile is a tragedy. He was not a bad person, but he did have a conviction for driving without a license. But I know some Whites close to me who have been charged with that crime also. I think the cop just badly screwed up in this case and thought Castile was going for his gun when in fact he was reaching for his wallet. The case of Sterling is much more complex, and it looks like he was an armed man struggling very hard with the officers. I have no idea what to say about this except that it looks like another SNAFU case. I need to learn more about it. Sterling was a lousy person, but he didn’t deserve the death penalty for being a dirtbag. Ok now, take it away, commenters!

"The Rise, Fall, and Reinvention of an American Company," by Alpha Unit

Overseas competition mortally wounded the Faribault Woolen Mill Company. It finally died in 2009 and joined the ranks of similarly disposed of American companies, all casualties of the ongoing quest for “cheaper” manufacturing. At the time of its demise, the company was nearly 150 years old. It had been created in 1865 when a German immigrant, Carl Henry Klemer, entered the woolen mill business after arriving in the village of Faribault, Minnesota. Prior to the Civil War, most woolen goods in this country were imported. Says Peter J. de Carlo:

After the war, domestic wool manufacturing increased as the country became more industrialized. The growth of wool production was aided by the Tariff Acts of 1867. The acts provided protection for domestic wool makers and made them more competitive. In Minnesota, the 1860s saw the beginning of many woolen manufacturing companies.

In 1882 Klemer moved his business to a building on the Straight River, in Rice County, Minnesota. A succession of fires over the next ten years ultimately destroyed the facility. In 1892 Klemer bought property on the Cannon River, built a fireproof brick building, and replaced the wooden dam that powered the mill with one made of stone. During this period, the Faribault mill picked up a military contract with West Point that allowed the business to expand. The company grew slowly during the early 1900s but built on its success with the military after being awarded a contract with the US Army in 1917 for 100,000 blankets. It also manufactured blankets for the military during World War II. In the postwar years Faribault led its industry with new products like washable wool and moth-proofed wool, with its profits peaking during the 1970s. Things began to change during the 1990s. A lot of woolen manufacturing had moved offshore, and high-tech synthetics were beginning to inundate the market. Faribault was struggling. In 1998 a majority of its stock was acquired by a businessman named Peter Lytle who was based in the Twin Cities. The company became a subsidiary of a new entity, North American Heritage Brands, which also bought a cotton mill as a hedge. North American Heritage Brands wasn’t up to the task of saving Faribault. The entity went bankrupt, taking both mills down with it. The Faribault Woolen Mill Company was finished. The owners shut the mill down abruptly. Employees were asked to leave their posts; blankets were still on the looms half-woven. Nearly everything, from office supplies to spinning machines, was left behind. To make matters worse, the mill flooded in 2010. The entire lower level had been filled with unattended machinery. According to John Mooty, everything that was still working was tagged to be shipped to a manufacturer in Pakistan. The rest was to be liquidated, and the facility would finally be emptied. What was left of the once-thriving company was the empty building and the rights to its name and brand. Someone came along and decided that these were worth holding onto. That was John Mooty’s uncle, Paul Mooty, and Paul’s cousin Chuck Mooty. After consulting with the mill’s former controller, the Mootys decided that reviving the mill would deliver a good return on investment. They reopened the mill in September of 2011 and brought back many of the employees who had been let go. “In less than six months, we went from not having a single usable restroom to selling goods in 50 states,” says Paul Mooty. The new owners had decided at the outset on a particular strategy, according to Adam Platt. They were going to get the acrylic out of their products, for starters. But more importantly, they saw no point in trying to compete with output from India and China. They were going to bring their products back as a brand. A major selling point was that Faribault’s products were American-made. Paul Mooty says that a lot of people are seeing now that the country has paid a price for shipping so many jobs overseas. The Mootys see great value in reviving a historic Minnesota business that they don’t want to see tossed by the wayside. In addition, they believe the art of textile manufacturing should be kept alive in America. The Faribault Woolen Mill Company creates its products from start to finish under one roof, making it one of the last fully vertically integrated manufacturers in the United States. Some analysts, including the Mootys, say that small manufacturers are going to be the key to bringing back jobs to the United States that big businesses sent overseas. Says Chuck Mooty:

The Chinas of the world were wonderful places for people to get value, but the middle market players are frustrated with rising costs of labor, energy, and transporting products. This is the time for people to step up and take some risks and invest in ventures that produce and manufacture products domestically.

It’s true that manufacturing in America includes many small businesses. Will the “Made in America” movement be the job creator people expect it to be?

"The Death of a Young Sailor," by Alpha Unit

Ashtabula, Ohio, is a major coal port on Lake Erie. The coal dock at Ashtabula Harbor is a transload point for coals destined for electricity-generating plants and cement producers in Canada and the Great Lakes area. Coals from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia arrive at Ashtabula by train before being sent on their way. Other commodities coming through the port include iron ore, sand, gravel, and stone.

Among the ships you could see at Ashtabula Harbor was the S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald, a lake freighter that carried iron ore from mines near Duluth, Minnesota, to iron works near cities like Detroit and Toledo. A young man named Karl Peckol, barely out of Ashtabula High School, signed on to work on the Edmund Fitzgerald. He became a watchman.

Most of the crew on the Fitzgerald were veteran seamen. But there were some novices, including Karl Peckol, who didn’t necessarily aspire to a life as a sailor. Stacy Millberg says that Peckol was working on going to college. He didn’t get to go to college. He died on November 10, 1975, when the Fitzgerald sank in a storm on Lake Superior. At 20 years old, he was the youngest man on board.

Bigfoot News July 12, 2014

List of Bigfoot shootings in chronological order. This post is going to be exclusively about the topic of reported incidents of humans shooting and/or killing Bigfoots from 1829 to the present day. I have a lot of other Bigfoot stuff to write about in my notes, but I am a bit overwhelmed by the many notes that I have. Please bear with me. This is a post I have been working on for some time. I finally lost interest in it, and it does need a bit of updating with the Sierra Kills and the Shooting Bigfoot Rick Dyer incident. Both of these may be included in the list for this reason: the list is merely of purported or reported shootings or killings of Bigfoots by humans, and Justin and Rick definitely reported shooting Bigfoots and frankly presented us with more evidence than most of the other folks below have. Anyone who wants to write up the Sierra Kills and/or Dyer incidents in an objective, reporter-style matter of fact way as a police dispatcher would report an incident that someone is calling in (descriptive only) is welcome to try their hand at it. What I mean by descriptive only is you just write down what Justin and Rick said happened in those incidents in reportorial style without commenting on the validity of the claim. Obviously, none of these claims have panned out yet, but it is pretty amazing that for a creature that supposedly does not exist, we have so many excellent shooting stories, often from otherwise credible, ordinary day to day folks who have never been known to make things up or lie. This is a good research piece, and nonprofit websites are free to repost it. Feel free to comment if you any new cases or if you can provide more information to any of the cases below. Note: Long, runs to 61 pages.

Bigfoots Shot At, Shot and Wounded, or Shot Dead by Humans

Unknown date: Klakas Inlet, Southern Alaska. In far southern Alaska on Prince of Wales Island, a Bigfoot was shot and buried at the mouth of a stream on the north side of the inlet. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Unknown date: Sonora, Mexico. Rich Grumley shot and killed a Bigfoot, then paid a taxidermist to stuff it, and the specimen was put on display in a ritzy country club on the East Coast. Reported by Ray Crowe. Unknown date, modern era: Yankton, Oregon. Near the Columbia River north of Portland, a hunter shot a Bigfoot four times between the eyes and killed it. It rolled off the road. The man came back 24 hours later, and the body was gone. There was a set of three tracks, possibly a family group – a male, a female and a juvenile. Reported by Ray Crowe. Unknown date, modern era, Amboy, Washington. Near Mt. St. Helens, a hunter reported that he shot and killed a male Bigfoot on an old logging road. Upon hearing that there was a $10,000 fine for killing a Bigfoot, the hunter hung up the phone on the researcher. Reported by Ray Crowe. Unknown date, modern era: Pound, Virginia. Someone shot at a Bigfoot roaring outside his home at midnight with a 12 gauge shotgun. The shot missed. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. June 20, 1829: Okefenokee Swamp, Georgia. A team of hunters set out in an attempt to track down and kill a Bigfoot in the swamp. After tracking for two weeks, they were set upon by the Bigfoot one night. The men opened up with all their guns, but it seemed useless. Five of the men were killed by the Bigfoot, who then tore all of the men’s heads off. The surviving men opened up on the Bigfoot, finally killing it. Reported by Augusta Chronicle, March 12, 2000 – “Hunters Told of Swamp Creature’s Attack.” Mid to late 1800’s: Bexar, Texas. The Legend of the Converse Werewolf. A rancher sent his 15-year-old son into the woods to hunt and told him not to come back until he had killed a deer. The boy never came back. People went searching for him and found the boy’s dead and mutilated body. A Bigfoot was standing over it. The rancher fired a shot and chased the Bigfoot into the woods. The others in the search party reported that the rancher never made it back alive, apparently also killed by the Bigfoot. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. 1856: Ohio or West Virginia. Possible Bigfoot skeleton found with bullet holes in its skull. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Late 1800’s: Winston, Alabama. A moonshiner shot a Bigfoot that was following his mule wagon. October 1879: Williamstown, Vermont. Two men hunting in the woods were surprised by a Bigfoot. One shot and wounded it. The Bigfoot chased them out of the woods. Reported by the New York Times, October 18, 1879. 1882: Inyo, California. A man, Jack Ferral, shot a Bigfoot five times. Reported by the Inyo Register, March 19, 1981 referring to articles in the Bishop Creek Times of 1882, noted in the Bigfoot Co-op April 1981, p.2. July 4, 1884: East of Yale, British Columbia. In the Fraser River Region, railroad men working on a British Colombia Express Company’s train stopped their train when they saw what appeared to be someone sleeping near the tracks. After they stopped the train, a juvenile male Bigfoot woke up, barked and started to climb up a steep bluff. The workers decided to chase him. One got up above him on the slope and dropped a rock on the Bigfoot. It disoriented the Bigfoot enough that the men were able to get a rope around him, capture him and put him on the train. They named the Bigfoot “Jacko.” Jacko had bruises on his head and upper body, and they assumed that he had gotten too near the edge of the bluff and had fallen over and landed, stunned, near the tracks. Jacko had been seen in the area where he was captured recently, but residents thought he was either a bear or a stray Indian dog. Jacko was 4’7, weighed 127 pounds, and was covered with shiny black hair. He was extremely strong. Jacko did not communicate other than making half-bark, half-growl sounds. He was fed berries and milk. There are conflicting reports on what happened to Jacko. Some reports said he was taken into Yale where a man made a pet of him. Other reports said that Jacko escaped from the train before it got to Yale. There are other reports that say this whole matter was a hoax, but I believe it was true. For one thing, John Green received a letter from Adele Bastin, whose mother remembered that people continued to talk of Jacko long afterward. Reported by The Colonist of Victoria, British Colombia, July 4, 1884. The best analysis of this incident was by Myra Shackley. There are reports that soon after Jacko was captured, a Bigfoot matching Jacko’s description was shot and killed in the same general area by a group of men, so the story about him escaping from the train before it got to Yale may be the correct version. Famous story. June 1885: Watauga County, North Carolina. Northwest of Seven Devils, NC. Roughly 15 to 20 miles northwest of Grandfather Mountain. A 13-year-old Cherokee girl went to gather food along a creek. Then she heard gunshots. She hid under a bush because at that time it was dangerous for an Indian girl to be caught in the woods by a White man. She heard someone running down the hill. As something ran past her, to her surprise she noted that it was a male Bigfoot. It seemed to have been wounded by the shots. The Bigfoot went down to the creek and buried itself in a pile of leaves, sticks, dirt and debris to the point where it was invisible. Then she heard the sounds of more people coming. She thought it was the White men, so she left. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. 1890: Brookings, Oregon. Two men shot and wounded a Bigfoot. The Bigfoot retaliated, slamming the men against trees and tearing them apart, killing them. Reported by the Bigfoot Track Record. 1900: Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. The Eskimo came out of the forest onto the beach and was met face to face with a Bigfoot. He opened fire and killed the Bigfoot. He and two other Eskimos then buried the Bigfoot on the beach. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1904: Lane, Oregon. On two separate occasions, men shot at Bigfoots that were prowling around their cabins. The shots missed the Bigfoots on both occasions. In one case, the Bigfoot threw a rock at the man who shot at it. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website. 1905: Gardner Canal, British Columbia. On the coast of central British Columbia, a Bigfoot was shot and killed, but there are no further details. Reported on the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club website. Summer 1917: Cass, Texas. A family coming home at night in a mule driven wagon was alerted by a screaming, advancing Bigfoot. The man shot at the Bigfoot, missed, and it ran away. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. 1917: Nowata, Oklahoma. Men shot at a Bigfoot that had gotten trapped inside of a barn. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. 1920’s: Walla Walla, Washington. Hunters shot and wounded a Bigfoot, but the Bigfoot ran away. A second Bigfoot appeared and threw boulders at the hunters. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1920’s-1930’s: Lake, California. A man hunted red-haired wildmen that lived in caves above a lake. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1921: Terrebonne, Louisiana. Hunters killed a Bigfoot and dumped the body in an old well. Later a skeleton was found and taken to Tulane University, where it disappeared. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1924: Deschutes, Oregon. A prospector shot a Bigfoot five times, but the Bigfoot was only wounded and ran away. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1924: Ape Canyon, Washington. Near Mt. St. Helens, miners Marion Smith, Roy Smith, Fred Beck, Gabe Lefever and John Peterson, shot and killed a Bigfoot, which fell off a cliff into a river below. Other Bigfoots retaliated and bombarded their cabin with rocks. Famous story. Reported by Fred Beck. 1928: South Bentinck Arm, near Bella Coola, British Columbia. On the coast of central British Columbia, George Talleo shot and killed a Bigfoot. He left the scene and did not come back. Reported by the Sasquatch-BC website. 1930: Kwaltwa Kitasu Bay, Swindle Island, British Columbia. Tom Brown saw a Bigfoot in the shallows at night. He shot at it, and it screamed. He went back the next day, but there was no body. Reported by John Green. After 1937: Green River, Washington. In the Cascades east of Tacoma, a hunter shot at it with a 30.06. Reported by John Green. 1940: Southeastern Missouri. Jared Sparks killed an apparent Bigfoot (he described it only as “like a gorilla”) that had been killing horses and cattle by tearing them apart. Disposition of body unknown. Reported by John Keel in Strange Creatures. Fall 1941: Near Basket Lake, Manitoba. A 17-year-old boy, Paul Shebaga, was hunting out of season shot and killed a Bigfoot that he thought was a moose. He left it in the forest because he thought it was human and because he was hunting out of season. He went back sometime later, and the body was gone. Shebaga has since died. Researchers who interviewed him found him a highly credible witness. Reported on BFRO site. 1943: Georgia, near the South Carolina border. A Bigfoot was shot and killed by shotguns, hit with 60 bullets after it was tracked by a group of men because it was killing sheep and calves by tearing off their legs. The reddish-brown Bigfoot was buried on the outskirts of town. Reported by Rich Grumley. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Winter 1943: Clarke, Alabama. Three men spotlighting deer in river bottomlands shot a Bigfoot. The Bigfoot may have died, but they did not stay around long enough to find out. Reported by the Alabama Bigfoot website. 1946: Lebanon, Pennsylvania. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. June 18, 1948: Franklin County, North Carolina. A Black family hunting in the woods at night shot and wounded a Bigfoot. It screamed, and they all ran away. 1949: Clackamas, Oregon. A man shot a Bigfoot that was eating a turkey. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Fall 1949: Coos, Oregon. A man shot a Bigfoot chewing on a live cow. The Bigfoot was wounded and ran off. Reported by the BFRO site. Early 1950: Near Boston, Georgia. A man shot at a Bigfoot when his dogs cornered it on a porch. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. 1950: Indiana, Pennsylvania. People shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. 1951: Thomas, Georgia. A man shot at a Bigfoot next to a porch. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. 1953: Alder Creek Canyon, Sandy, Oregon. East of Portland, a hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot, then buried the body. Reported by Peter Byrne. 1956: Shasta, California. A man may have shot a Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1957: Near Jackson, Tennessee. James M. Meacham shot repeatedly at a Bigfoot with no effect. Ivan T. Sanderson, Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life, pp.122-3. Late 1950’s: Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania. A group of young people were sitting in a house waiting for a Bigfoot to come back, as it had been banging on houses earlier in the night. The Bigfoot approached the house and ran away when people shot at it. Reported by Grover Krantz. 1957: Deschutes, Oregon. A hunter shot and killed a deer. A Bigfoot then ran out, grabbed the deer and started to run away with it. The hunter then shot the Bigfoot, but the Bigfoot was only wounded and made off with the deer. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1958-1960: Overton County, Tennessee. A Bigfoot stealing chickens was shot dead by the owner of the chickens. They drove it around the area to see if anyone could identify it. Disposition of body unknown. Reported by Mary Green. 1959: Knoxville, Tennessee. A Bigfoot was shot at when it came near a man’s home. Reported by Mary Green, Fifty Years with Bigfoot: Tennessee Chronicles of Coexistence, p. 192. 1959: Carroll County, Maryland. A police officer shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. October 1959: South of Tenmile, Oregon. A black Bigfoot chased two boys up a hill and across a ridge. One of the boys shot the Bigfoot seven times with a 30.06 shotgun. The Bigfoot slumped down but then picked itself up and kept coming after them. Reported by John Green, The Sasquatch File, p. 19. Summer 1960’s: Morris, Texas. Two girls sitting on a bed talking at night looked outside and saw a Bigfoot in their yard. They called their grandfather. He came with a rifle and shot the Bigfoot. The Bigfoot roared and ran away. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. Winter 1960’s: Wildwood, California. A Bigfoot was spotted peeking in the windows at a dance held at the inn. A man ran outside to grab his 30.06 rifle from his pickup truck. He shot the Bigfoot, and it screamed and ran off. Men tracked it to the Trinity River where they lost the trail. Reported by Ben Foster, Williamsburg, Indiana. 1960’s: Douglas, Oregon: In the Cascades west of the Umpqua National Forest, a farmer shot a Bigfoot and then somehow managed to take it back to his house, where he left it outside. Other Bigfoots then came that night and retrieved the body. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Winter 1960: Watson Bay, Roderick Island, British Columbia. Timothy Robinson and Samson Duncan shot at a small Bigfoot that they saw on a snow-covered beach. They found blood on the snow where it had been but were too afraid to follow the blood trail. Reported by John Green and Bob Titmus. October 1963: Smith, Texas. Men hunting coons in the woods at night were alerted when dogs treed an animal. A beagle came running back, badly wounded with its guts hanging out of its body. The men came to the tree, and there was a Bigfoot in the tree with hounds circling around the trunk. The Bigfoot was howling and shaking the tree. One of the men shot the Bigfoot twice with a .22, but the Bigfoot only screamed even louder. The men all became frightened and ran away. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. 1965: Near Fouke, Arkansas. James Lynn Crabtree, age 14, shot a Bigfoot three times in the face, but the Bigfoot did not die. Reported by BFRO site. 1965: Yakima, Washington. A boy shot a Bigfoot but only wounded it. The Bigfoot then tore the boy apart, crushing his ribcage, and killing him. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1965: Kitimat, British Columbia. On the coast of central British Columbia, a Kitimat man shot and killed a Bigfoot near town. He was trying to drag the body away when other Bigfoots came out and tried to attack him. He barely escaped to his canoe. Reported on the British Colombia Scientific Cryptozoology Club website. October 1965: Nisqually Hill, near Olympia, Washington. While driving at night, Russell Gels and Dennis Lensgrave saw a white 7-foot Bigfoot in their car headlights and shot at it. The Bigfoot ran away. Reported by The Sunday Olympian, October 24, 1965. 1966: Erie, Pennsylvania. Men shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. January 1966: Wildwood, California. Bob Kelley and Archie Bradshaw saw a Bigfoot looking in their window. One of the men fired his shotgun at the Bigfoot and thought he hit it. The Bigfoot’s tracks were followed down to Hayfork Creek. Reported by the Redding, California Record Searchlight. May 1966: Spillimacheen, British Columbia. A man watching two Bigfoots have sex while another watched shot at the Bigfoot that was watching the other two but missed. The man was hunting grizzly bears at the time. Reported by the BFRO site. Summer 1966: Near Richland, Washington: Several boys – Greg Pointer, Roger True, Tom Thompson, Carl and Jim Franklin, John McKnight, Alvin Anderson, Selby Green, Roger Howard, Bob McDonald, and Ron Blackburn – saw an 8-foot whitish-gray Bigfoot and shot at it several times with no effect. Reported by John Green, Roger Patterson and Rene Dahinden. October 1966: Near Yakima, Washington. Mike Corey’s dog was attacked by a Bigfoot. He shot at it as it ran away. Corey’s dog was later mysteriously killed. Reported by Roger Patterson. Late 1960’s: Chuska Mountains, New Mexico. Two Navajo shepherds shot a Bigfoot. It ran wounded into a canyon. Two other Bigfoots helped it. Reported by a Mrs. Chessman in John Green, The Sasquatch File. February 1967: Hartley Bay, British Columbia: Two men saw a Bigfoot on an island and shot it. It screamed and ran away. Reported by Bob Titmus. May 1967: Wasco, Oregon. Dennis Taylor and his friends often watched Bigfoots crossing the highway near the cemetery while going from the hills to the river, usually around 11:30 PM. Several times they shot at them with various weapons. Once one was hit at close range with buckshot and it fell down. It leaped up and crashed through a barbed wire fence, taking out three fence posts. Reported on the Oregon Bigfoot website. Fall 1967: Winlock, Washington: A grayish Bigfoot had been seen in a necking spot for high school students. Some high school boys went out with a 30.30 and took a shot at it, but it ran away. Reported by the BFRO site. Fall 1967: By Chehalis River near Chehalis, Washington. Billy Brown was hunting when he saw an 8-foot tall white Bigfoot. He shot it in the head, and it screamed and ran into a swamp. Reported by Roger Patterson. December 1967: Teton National Forest near Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Two college students from Marshalltown, Iowa – Lyle Bingaman and Mike Burton – shot and killed a Bigfoot, thinking it was a bear. They were terrified that they had killed a human being and that they would be prosecuted for murder, so they left it where it fell. Reported by Peter Byrne. 1968: North of Carson, Wyoming. Three men were hired by a rancher to kill a Bigfoot that was killing his cows and sheep by tearing off their legs. Afterward, the body was picked up by a government helicopter and taken to a research facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico to be autopsied and studied. Reported by Ray Crowe. Government coverup. May 1968: Delphi, Indiana: A man and a woman were finishing their breakfast when a 5-foot tall “monkey” (Bigfoot) approached their residence. When the creature was 20 feet away from the door, the man gut-shot the Bigfoot in the stomach. It screamed, held its stomach and ran away. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. Autumn 1968: Point Isabel, Ohio. Larry Abbott, his father, and Arnold Hubbard saw a 10-foot tall white Bigfoot. The men fired on it. It vanished in a white mist. Reported by Leonard H. Stringfield, Situation Red – The UFO Siege!, pp. 65-6. After 1968: Alabama. The same man involved in the Carson, Wyoming case above shot another Bigfoot later on. This time the government found out about it and was angry at the man for killing another Bigfoot. Reported by Ray Crowe. Government coverup. New Years Day, 1969: Franklin, Missouri. Arbie Boyer pumped nine bullets from a .22 rifle into a Bigfoot 20 feet away from his home. It turned and slowly walked away. Then man then shot it with a 45/70 rifle and hit it in the shoulder. Reported on the Bigfoot Encounters website. 1969: San Juan, New Mexico. Shepherds shot a Bigfoot and wounded it. Two other Bigfoots then came to help the wounded Bigfoot away. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1969: Whiteface Reservoir, Minnesota. A hunter shot and killed a Bigfoot, then put the body on ice and displayed it for awhile before replacing it with a plastic replica. The famous Minnesota Iceman story. Late February 1969: Khutze Inlet, British Columbia. Ronnie Nyce and two other men shot a Bigfoot that ran screaming into the woods. Reported by Bob Titmus. November 1969: Burlington, New Jersey. A man shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. November 1969. Calaveras Big Trees State Park, California. Mike Scott shot a Bigfoot three times from 30 feet away, wounding it. Reported by Slate and Berry, Bigfoot. 1969-1972: Homosassa Springs, Florida. A group of teenagers were hanging out at a rock quarry at night when one of them shot and wounded a Bigfoot. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. After 1969: Clark, Washington. Neat Mt. St. Helens, a man shot and killed a Bigfoot, then tried to sell it but stopped when he thought it might have been illegal to kill the Bigfoot. No further details. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Early 1970’s: Chelan, Washington. Men shot at a Bigfoot holding and biting a 150-pound pig. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Early to mid 1970’s: Burr Ferry, Louisiana. A coon hunter shot a Bigfoot, and it screamed loudly. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. Summer 1970’s: Evangelina, Texas. Fishermen camping on the Neches River heard noises down by their bait box and boat and smelled a bad smell. The grandfather fired in the direction of the commotion and then a terrible scream was heard. Nothing was found the next morning except footprints. The grandfather said he had shot a Bigfoot. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy.. 1970’s: Sylacauga, Alabama, on the slope of Marble Mountain. After a series of incidents involving Bigfoots on a small farm, sheriffs were called out. A sheriff’s deputy saw a Bigfoot standing near the house. Although he did not know what it was, he emptied his revolver at it. It ran off. The deputy then told the family that he would not come out to the house at night alone again. Reported by the Alabama Bigfoot site. Government coverup. 1970’s: Gray’s Harbor, Washington. A man shot at a Bigfoot. Four Bigfoots then attacked his pickup truck. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1970’s: Oregon. A man unloaded four rounds from a 30.06 into a Bigfoot, but the shots had little effect on the Bigfoot. Reported by Oregon Archives, University of Oregon. 1970’s: Idaho. Two men fired their rifles, one .22 and one .44 magnum, at a Bigfoot, but the shots had little effect. 1970: Spokane, Washington. A hunter shot Bigfoots. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. 1972: Citrus, Florida. A man shot a Bigfoot. Possibly the same as the previous incident. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. June 1972: Rusk, Texas. A Bigfoot watched campers at a campfire for about four minutes. The men then opened fire on the Bigfoot, and it ran away. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. 1973: Fayette, Pennsylvania. A man shot twice at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. June 1973: Maryland. A man shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. June 1973: Collowash River, Oregon. A man was sitting by a campfire when a Bigfoot walked by. He shot it, and it ran screaming into the woods. Reported by John Green. July 1973: Greensburg, Pennsylvania. A doctor fired several shots at a Bigfoot that tried to enter his trailer home, but it walked away. Reported by Pat Morrison, UFOs and Bigfoot Creatures: An Adventure into the Unexplained, p.29. Fall 1973: Albany, Kentucky. Many people saw a dark 6-foot tall Bigfoot. It killed some livestock in the area. People shot at it. Farmer Charlie Stern finally wounded it, and the sightings stopped. Reported by Loren Coleman. October 1973: Pennsylvania. Witnesses saw a slow-moving, bright red UFO land in a farm pasture. Men went to the top of the pasture to investigate and they saw two Bigfoots creeping along a barbed wire fence about 75 feet away from the UFO. They were making strange whining sounds and and another sound like a baby crying. One man fired a tracer bullet at the Bigfoots. One of the Bigfoots reached up in the air as if trying to grab the tracer bullet. The man tried shooting at the Bigfoot with live ammunition, but the bullets had no effect. Reported by Stan Gordon on Coast to Coast radio show, November 28, 2014. November 1973. Near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. A man saw a Bigfoot at night and shot at it with his revolver. It ran away. Later he shot it with a rifle. It screamed and ran away. Reported by Stan Gordon, “Pennsylvania Creatures Busy,” Shylooh: 77, pp. 15-16. 1974: Near Stone State Park, Sioux City, Iowa. A man shot and wounded a Bigfoot with a deer rifle. Reported by the Des Moines, Iowa Sunday Register, November 12, 1978. 1974: South Mountain, North Carolina. A 7-foot Bigfoot stood up by a campfire. A man fired at it, and it went away. Reported by John Green. January 1974: Lee, Florida. A Bigfoot killed a pony. A man then shot at the Bigfoot in response. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. January 9, 1974: Palm Beach, Florida. Patrolman Robert Hollemeyal  shot a 7-8-foot tall, dark Bigfoot. The Bigfoot was only wounded and ran off at 20 mph. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. February 1974: Fayette, Pennsylvania. Men shot multiple Bigfoots. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. February 6, 1974: Uniontown, Pennsylvania. A Bigfoot was shot at and then disappeared. A UFO was seen nearby. Stan Gordon, “Pennsylvania Creatures Busy,” Shylooh: 77, pp.14-17 May 1974: North Carolina. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. July-Aug. 1974: Watova, near Nowata, Oklahoma. A Bigfoot was seen many times around the property of Mrs. Margie Lee. She called sheriffs, and Deputies Gilbert Gilmore and Buck Field came out. The deputies shot the Bigfoot, but it was uninjured. Reported by Clark and Loren Coleman, Creatures of the Outer Edge. Mid-October 1974: Near Holly Springs, Arkansas. A Bigfoot was sighted several times. A man shot it, but it lived. Reported by the Arkansas Gazette, November 2, 1974. November 1974: Corkscrew Swamp, Collier County, Florida. A group of men hunting at night were being stalked by a Bigfoot. They opened fire on it with their shotguns. It screamed and ran off. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. December 1974: Bootlegger Trail, Montana. A coyote hunter shot three times at a 7-8-foot tall Bigfoot with a 30.06. The Bigfoot kept coming at him, and he jumped into a car and escaped. Roberta Donovan and Keith Wolverton, Mystery Stalks the Prairie, p.90. February 1975: Alachua, Florida. A man’s car hit a Bigfoot on the road and knocked it down. The man got out of his car and shot the Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. February 2, 1975: Cape Coral, Florida. Richard Davis shot a Bigfoot, then later repented. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. September 1975: Nowata, Kansas. Men shot at a Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. September and October 1975: Nolde, Oklahoma. Kenneth Tosh, Marion Parret, Clifford Bentson, and Gerald Bullock tried to shoot and kill a Bigfoot on repeated occasions over a 2-month period. They were unsuccessful; the Bigfoot survived. Reported by by Jerome Clark and Hayden Hewes. Early October 1975: Lummi Indian Reserve near Bellingham, Washington. The captain of the police force shot at a 6-foot+ tall Bigfoot. Reported by John Green, Sasquatch: The Apes Among Us, p. 17. October 1975: Fayette, Pennsylvania. A man shot at two Bigfoots. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. October 1975: Washington, Pennsylvania. Men shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. December 26, 1975: Vaughn, Montana. Two teenage girls shot over the head of a Bigfoot. The Bigfoot fell to the ground and was helped into the brush by other Bigfoots. Reported by Roberta Donovan and Keith Wolverton, Mystery Stalks the Prairie, pp.87-9. 1976-1977: Linn, Oregon. A man met two young women in a casino in Las Vegas who told him a fascinating story. Shortly before, they had wanted to go hiking in Oregon so they hired a guide to take them to the forest. At one point, they came across a Bigfoot, and the guide raised his rifle and fired on it several times, seemingly to no effect. The Bigfoot then tore the man apart, killing him. The man’s body was evacuated via a heavily-armed US Forest Service helicopter. The Forest Service grilled the females for seven hours, trying to convince them that the man had been killed by a bear, but they stuck to their story. The ranger then told the women to never come back to the forest again. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Government coverup. 1976: Kern, California. A man shot a Bigfoot ten times in the chest with a .22 rifle. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. January 1976: Elm Creek, Texas Panhandle. Three men shot and killed two Bigfoots. The first one charged them, so they shot it. Then another one charged them, so they shot it too. They dropped both of them, a male and a female. They buried the bodies down by a nearby creek. They were afraid they would be prosecuted for homicide so they kept quiet about the killing. However, they recently told their story anonymously on a radio show. April 26, 1976: Near Flintville, Tennessee. A Bigfoot tried to abduct 4 -year-old Gary Robinson. A six-man posse made up of Deputy Sheriff Homer Davis, Melvin Robertson, Stan Moore, and three others chased the Bigfoot and shot at it. Reported by Jim Brandon, Weird America, p.205 June 1976: Baltimore, Maryland. As unlikely as it sounds, a Bigfoot was reported here in May 1976. Police were called, and K-9’s initially refused to track it. Finally, the dogs tracked it to an interstate tunnel. A police officer then saw it run under the interstate. The next month, US army personnel were called out to deal with the Bigfoot once again. Reports indicate that soldiers captured or killed the Bigfoot. No further information. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. Government coverup. July 1976: Citrus, Florida. A man shot a Bigfoot. Possibly the same case as another Citrus case reported above. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. July 1976: Gaston, North Carolina: A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. January 23, 1977: Blewett Pass near Ingalic Creek, Washington. David Kernoul and Dean DeWees saw a Bigfoot near a chicken pen and shot at it. Reported by Wenatchee, Washington World, January 26, 1977. April 13, 1977: Rising Sun, Indiana. Tom and Connie Courter saw a Bigfoot on a hill late at night. Tom fired 12 shots at it, but there was no trace of the Bigfoot the next day. Reported by the Cincinnati Post, April 20, 1977. May 12-13, 1977: Wantage Township, New Jersey. A Bigfoot visited the Sites family farm and killed some of their rabbits. It came back later, and the family shot at it. Reported by S.N. Mayne, “The Wantage Event,” Pursuit: 10-4, pp. 124-7. Summer 1977: Cheshire, New Hampshire. Hunters may have shot at a tan-gray Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. July 1977: Jones, Texas. A Bigfoot threw a rock at a human and hit him. In response, the human shot at the Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. August 1977: Stilwell, Oklahoma. Brian Jones and two boys with the last name Ritchie saw a Bigfoot looking in the window. Jones went outside, and an 8-foot tall Bigfoot picked him up but dropped him when others appeared. The boys fired at the Bigfoot, which responded by throwing rocks. Reported by the Bigfoot Research Society. August 15, 1977: Sussex County, New Jersey. A man shot a Bigfoot in the front yard of a house with a .22 pistol. The Bigfoot screamed and ran off. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. August 20, 1977: Belt Creek Canyon, Montana. Staff Sergeant Fred Wilson and two others saw a 15 1/2 foot tan Bigfoot standing in some bushes. They fired at it but drove off in their car when it ran towards them. Great Falls Tribune, August 20, 1977. October 1977: Broward, Florida. A Bigfoot tore at a man’s shirt. In response, the man shot the Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. October 1977: Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. October 1-2, 1977. Near Bend, Oregon. Gary Benson and Ronald Kershey said a 7-foot tall black-haired Bigfoot with silver shoulders attacked them. They fired four shots at it. Reported by INFO Journal: 6-4, p.15. November 1977: Marion, Florida. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. Mid-November 1977: Ocala National Forest, Florida. A hunter fired six times at an 8-foot tall Bigfoot weighing 800 pounds. Ocala Star-Banner, November 19, 1977. 1978: Fort Pierce, Washington. Edwin Godoy, a soldier on the base, shot a Bigfoot in the chest. The Bigfoot moaned and ran off. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website. 1978: Fayette, Pennsylvania. A Bigfoot smashed a windshield of a car. A man then fired on the Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. April 1978: Pennsylvania. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. April 1978: Danbury, Connecticut. A boy called deputies out to a farm where he saw a Bigfoot. Deputies came out, saw the Bigfoot and shot at it. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website. June 26, 1978: Crossett, Arkansas. Mike Lofton, age 10, was feeding his dog when his dog began to tremble. Mike then saw a Bigfoot approaching the house from the woods. He ran and got his .22, shot at the Bigfoot, and the Bigfoot ran off. Reported by the BFRO site. August 1978: Near Owensboro, Kentucky. Larry Nelson, his brother and two friends shot three .45 bullets into a Bigfoot’s chest. It ran off into the woods unhurt. Reported by Keith Lawrence, “The Fairview Horror,” UFO Report, May 1979, p.30. Mid-August 1978: Near Owensboro, Kentucky. Several men cornered a Bigfoot beside a pond and shot it at a distance of 10 feet with a pistol. It ran into the woods, leaving no blood trail. Reported by Keith Lawrence, “The Fairview Horror,” UFO Report, May 1979, p.70. August 14, 1978: Oceana, West Virginia. Policeman Bill Pruitt shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by the Charleston, West Virginia Gazette, August 15, 1978. August 16, 1978: Fowlerville, Michigan. Gary Browning shot at a Bigfoot that ran out of the underbrush. Reported by the Lansing, Michigan State Journal, August 18, 1978. October 1978: Colombia, Oregon. Men shot a Bigfoot between the eyes on a road. The Bigfoot rolled off the road, and the men took off. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. April 30, 1979: Dunn Lake, near Barriere, British Colombia. Tim Meissner was fishing with friends when he saw a Bigfoot across the lake. He came back later with a gun and shot at it. Reported by the Vancouver, WA, The Columbian, May 6, 7 and 9, 1979. Late Spring 1979: South Mountain, North Carolina. A fisherman saw a Bigfoot in the underbrush. He came back later with a gun and shot at it. Reported by Robert L. Williams, “‘Knobby’, North Carolina’s Bigfoot,” UFO Report, September 1979, p.27. October 1979: Oregon. A Bigfoot put a hand on a boy’s shoulder. The boy ran to the men he was with, who got guns and fired into the woods at the Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Mid-October 1979: Knox County, Indiana. Two boys who were predator hunting at night with rabbit-in-distress calls called in a Bigfoot. They shot at it, and it ran off. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website. 1980: Vinton, Ohio. A man shot a Bigfoot. Bigfoots threw boulders at trailers in response. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. September 1981: Cleveland, North Carolina. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. October 10, 1980: Fleming County, Kentucky. A Bigfoot raided J. L. Turney’s freezer. Turney chased it and shot at it. Reported by the Flemingsburg, Kentucky, Times-Democrat, October 15, 1980. November 1981: Taylor County, Florida. A Bigfoot approached a camp of hunters in the middle of the night. A man fired a gun at it several times to make it go away. It crashed off into the woods. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. 1982: Oglethorpe, Georgia. A woman went outside to tend to the dogs and was surprised to see a Bigfoot there. She ran back in the house yelling for her husband. The man was in the bathroom and shot through the bathroom wall at the Bigfoot, hitting it. The Bigfoot ran off. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website. 1982: Colombia, Oregon. A fisherman shot a Bigfoot. He followed the blood trail until he lost it. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Spring 1982: Maryland. A man shot a Bigfoot. Reported by Rick Berry, Bigfoot on the East Coast. Fall 1982: Cherokee, Texas. A man shot a Bigfoot with a shotgun three times and with a .357 revolver five times. The Bigfoot apparently survived. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. Fall 1983: Morgan-Monroe State Forest, Indiana. A college student was having a drinking party at his house with two friends. Early in the morning, he heard a noise and went outside. He saw what appeared to be a Bigfoot. He went back into his house, got an automatic weapon and shot at it. It ran off into the woods. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website. October 13, 1983: Wilson, Oklahoma. A Bigfoot, apparently mad at a man for some reason, charged into a man’s house and tore the house apart. The man grabbed his shotgun and shot the Bigfoot. Then the man and his family chased the Bigfoot out of the house and barricaded the doors. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. November 1983: Tillamook, Oregon. A hunter tried to shoot a Bigfoot, but the gun was empty. The Bigfoot then growled at the hunter. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. Mid 1980’s: Johnson County, Arkansas. A Bigfoot kept taking a farmer’s animals – chickens, pigs and calves – but by fall, he would only take no more than half the farmer’s animals, leaving the other half for the farmer. The farmer got fed up and one night lay in wait for it with a shotgun. When the Bigfoot appeared, the farmer shot it with a shotgun, wounding it. The Bigfoot ran away and never bothered the farm again. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. Mid 1980’s: Johnson County, Arkansas. Two men were poaching deer with spotlights at night when they spotlighted a Bigfoot. One man shot at it, wounding it. The next day they found blood from the Bigfoot. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. October 15, 1984. Jefferson, Texas. A man was squirrel hunting in Pine Islands Bayou in the Big Thicket National Preserve when his dog started barking. He then noticed a Bigfoot wading in the bayou. His dog charged the Bigfoot, and the Bigfoot threw a log at the dog. The man then fired on the Bigfoot, but he did not know if he hit it or not. The Bigfoot ran off into the underbrush. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. 1985: Pierce, Washington. A Bigfoot charged at men. Men then fired on the Bigfoot, then got in their car and drove away. The Bigfoot chased the pickup truck as it was driving away. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1985: Ripley, Oklahoma. A group of people out partying by the Cimarron River saw a Bigfoot. The Bigfoot then crashed off into the brush. Men left to go get guns and came back to shoot at the Bigfoot. They saw it and shot it. It screamed and ran away. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. October 20, 1986: Los Angeles County, California. Father and son deer hunters hunting in the San Gabriel Mountains noticed something rustling the brush very forcefully. They fired a few shots at it, then it came out of the brush and stood in front of them. It was a Bigfoot. They both ran away. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. 1987: Pacific, Washington. A Bigfoot chased rafters along a river for seven miles, throwing rocks at them. A man fired into the brush at the Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. May 1987: Maricopa County, Arizona. A group of men were fishing for catfish. They fell asleep. At 2 AM, one awoke and noticed a female Bigfoot standing only 10 feet away. This situation went on for a while, as the one man in the group who had a gun pointed it at the Bigfoot to hold her at bay. At one point, she charged the men, and he opened fire at close range with a single shot shotgun. The Bigfoot grabbed her chest and ran across the lake to the other side, crashing through the brush. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. 1988: Atoka, Oklahoma. A hunter shot a Bigfoot with a 30.06 rifle, but the Bigfoot was only wounded and ran away. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. 1990’s: Nowata, Oklahoma. A farmer shot at a Bigfoot. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. 1990: Clark, Washington. A woman shot at a Bigfoot in the brush near her chicken coop. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. May 1990: Cooke County, Texas. Men shot a Bigfoot in the chest with a shotgun while on a camping trip. Reported by the BFRO website. September 1990: Glenn, California. A Bigfoot that had been shot at by other men ran past a group of men. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. 1991: Indiana. Two young men were hunting at night when they saw a Bigfoot. They freaked out and opened fire on it with a shotgun. It screamed and chased them half a mile through the woods. Reported by Mary Green. August 1992: Between Westal and Crosstal, Tennessee. A man and his sons were out hunting squirrels in the woods. At 3:30 AM, the father woke up when a Bigfoot was trying to pull him out of the back of his truck. He thought it was one of his sons, so he yelled at them to stop. After a bit, he realized it was a Bigfoot. He shot and wounded it, and it walked away. Later, it came back and walked around the camp breaking branches and menacing the campers. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. August 1992: Iowa. Two fishermen camping beside a river saw a Bigfoot walking along the bank on the opposite side early in the morning. One man fired three shots at it with his .22, and it ran over the top of the bank and disappeared. Reported by The Sasquatch Report Issue #84 March 1997. May 1993: Clark, Washington. Deer poachers shot a Bigfoot and wounded it. Blood was found, but the Bigfoot escaped. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. December 1994: Deschutes, Oregon. Hunters shot and wounded a Bigfoot in the leg and followed the blood trail for several miles. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. November 1996: Coos, Oregon. Spotlight hunters took long shots at a spotlighted Bigfoot. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. May 1997: Mendocino, California. A man shot at a female and some juvenile Bigfoots. Another Bigfoot then attacked the man and broke some of his bones. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. September 1997: Tillamook County, Oregon. A hiker shot at a Bigfoot standing on a rock outcropping early in the morning. The Bigfoot ran off. July 1997: Jones, Texas. A Bigfoot threw a rock at a man, hitting him. The man then shot back at the Bigfoot but missed. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. October 1998: Madison, Virginia. A man was camping in the woods when he saw a Bigfoot up on a ridge only 80 feet away when he woke up in the morning. He emptied his revolver at it, and it ran off. Reported by the Bigfoot Encounters website. November 1998: Longview, Texas. Two men were out squirrel hunting in the woods when they came across a Bigfoot. It ran across the trail and took off into the woods. The men decided to leave the area quickly, but five minutes later, they smelled a bad smell. They looked around, and 20-30 feet to the side in the woods was the Bigfoot again. One man fired three shots at it, hitting the Bigfoot. The Bigfoot screamed and then chased the men all the way back to their house. It roamed the woods around the house all night, yelling and breaking branches. Later in the night, one of the men fired on the Bigfoot again. November 4, 1998: Greenbrier, Tennessee. A man out hunting was scared off by a Bigfoot staring in the window of his truck. He drove off quickly, but the Bigfoot had blocked the road with a downed tree. The hunter called his friend to come cut up the tree. They drove off and came to the main road when they saw some deer. The hunter decided to shoot a deer, so he got out. But then the two men saw a Bigfoot heading towards a neighbor’s barn. They fired shots at it, but it kept moving towards the barn. As they fired more, it turned and ran towards them. They jumped into their trucks and drove away very fast. The hunter and his friend went to their homes, but then they heard the Bigfoot again. The Bigfoot yelled and burst out of the trees 40 feet away. The men unloaded all their guns at it, and it fell to the ground and started crawling away. The hunter told his friend to stop shooting at it because they didn’t know what it was. They followed the blood trail 1/2 mile to a creek where they lost the trail. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. April 6, 1999: Hawkins County, Tennessee. A farmer was plowing his field with his tractor when he saw a Bigfoot come out of the trees. He thought it was a bear, so he pulled out his 30.06 rifle and shot it. They tracked it for six hours but could not find it. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. September-October 1999: Northwestern Alabama. A woman sighted a Bigfoot and reported it to law enforcement. The next day at 4 PM they saw helicopters flying over the area. The copters had .50 caliber machine guns and were firing into the woods. This went on until midnight. Apparently they hit the Bigfoot because residents heard horrible screams from the wounded Bigfoot. It is not known if the Bigfoot was killed or not. When people asked law enforcement about the helicopters, citizens were told that the police had been eradicating wild boars in the area. However, there had not been any wild boars in the area for 20 years. Reported by the Southeastern Bigfoot Research Organization. Government coverup. January 2000: Honobia, Oklahoma. The Siege of Honobia. Bigfoot apparently shot and killed as part of a group that was raiding and harassing a rural residence. Other Bigfoots apparently carried off the dead Bigfoot. Reported by the BFRO site. August 2000: Fort Mitchell, Alabama. A man and his friend were camping at Rood Creek Park Campground and Boat Landing on the Chattahoochee River, Georgia. One of the men’s dogs started whimpering, and the man went to check on it. Then he saw a Bigfoot coming out of the woods and approaching the camp. The man fired two shots from his pistol at the Bigfoot, but they didn’t seem to faze it. The Bigfoot then grabbed the man’s dog and tore it to shreds. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. October 11, 2000: Lewis County, Washington. A mother and two of her children saw a Bigfoot walking across the road. It looked as if it had a gunshot wound in the lower back. Reported by the BFRO site. April 27, 2001: Orange County, Indiana. A hunter was in a blind calling turkeys in the woods when he heard a noise 50 feet in back of him. He turned around, and after a little bit, a Bigfoot stepped into view. Soon the Bigfoot charged the hunter’s position. The hunter fired one shot at the Bigfoot’s face and hit it. The Bigfoot turned and ran down a steep ravine where it stumbled around for 15 minutes or so. A trail of blood was found leading to the ravine. Reported by the Gulf Coast Bigfoot Research Organization. October 4, 2001: Woodville, Texas. A woman saw a Bigfoot standing in her backyard. She told her son, who grabbed a gun and took off into the woods after it. Soon he heard two men shouting along with gunshots. Then the men said, “Let’s get out of here!” They had apparently been shooting at the Bigfoot. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. 2002: Sawyer, Oklahoma. An old man shot a Bigfoot. Bigfoots then started coming to the house, throwing rocks and sticks at it. One day the old man died of a heart attack. Reported by the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy. Late January 2002: Monster Central, Louisiana. This is a 1,500 acre zone in northwest Louisiana south of Shreveport. A hunter gut shot a Bigfoot and wounded it. Other men with dogs were called in to track the Bigfoot. They tracked it to a tree on the edge of a stream, but it jumped down out of the tree and into the stream. One of the men shot at it again but missed. Then the men became worried that some of the other Bigfoots might come around to defend the one they shot. Some blood and vomitus were taken for analysis, but the wife of the man who had the samples accidentally threw them away when she found them in the freezer. The results came back “unknown primate.” Reported here. July 16, 2003: Lincoln County, Tennessee. A man shot a white Bigfoot that was making noise in a yard at night. The Bigfoot stumbled and then ran away. Reported by the BFRO site. November 12, 2003: Lafollette, Tennessee. A creature had been killing peoples’ animals. A goat and cat at the very least had been killed. A woman called the sheriff’s, they came out with a team of deputies, and told everyone to get their pets indoors, as they were going to eliminate this animal. They tracked the Bigfoot and shot it dead over the next hill. There were sirens wailing, and the Bigfoot screamed as it was shot. The woman left the scene. People saw a black body lying in a field the next morning. Ten minutes later, it had vanished. Planes flew around the area night and day for two weeks. Locals reported that there had been a hostile Bigfoot in the area, and they were trying to appease it by leaving food out for it so it would not kill their animals. The next day the woman who reported the incident went back to the area, and someone had taken the body away. Reported by Mary Green. Government coverup. February 2006: Navarro, Texas: At a road crossing, a man shot a Bigfoot twice with a 30.06. The Bigfoot was wounded but walked away. Reported in the Bigfoot Track Record. August 2006: Slim Buttes, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. A Bigfoot that had been named Chiye-tanka was shot and killed on the reservation. It was later given to the School of Mines to study. They sent it back, and it was given a ceremonial burial by Lakota elders. Reported by Ray Crowe. Government coverup.

"We'll Get You Pie Before You Die," by Alpha Unit

The fruits of their labor built America’s cities and homes, historians say, and made some people very rich. Nowadays we call them loggers. Once upon a time they were lumberjacks. Or “timber beasts,” if you really didn’t like them. Life was rough and frequently cut short when you did this kind of work. At the beginning of the twentieth century when serious efforts were made to unionize the logging industry, most workers in the country were virtual slaves, called “wage slaves” by organizers, according to journalists John C. Hughes and Ryan Teague Beckwith. In their book On the Harbor: From Black Friday to Nirvana, they chronicle unionization efforts for loggers in the Pacific Northwest, and go into detail about their working conditions. Record-keeping wasn’t very good in those days, but a man’s life expectancy as a logger was said to be about seven years, they say.

Seldom a week went by without a buddy killed or maimed by a rolling log, a falling tree, a giant splinter run through him, or a whipping cable slicing him in two.

From the time he got out of bed in the morning, a logger never knew if he’d make it back to the bunkhouse in one piece, as one writer put it. Hughes and Beckwith continue:

Sawmill workers and shingle weavers lost fingers so routinely that it was practically a rite of passage. Hands and arms went flying, too, in geysers of blood, as the saws shrieked.

None of this made much of a difference to the employers. None of what many workers take for granted today existed then in this industry – no safety regulations, no inspections of gear or practices, and certainly no health insurance or rehabilitation programs. According to Hughes and Beckwith:

When a logger was crippled or killed, the bosses often said it was his own damn fault. He was too careless, or a greenhorn. Maybe just unlucky. “Joe’s number was up. We’re burnin’ daylight. Let’s get the lead out!”

These workers were easy to take advantage of. They were typically single young men, often recent immigrants. Many were migrants who followed timber jobs as they became available. But conditions in lumber camps were so bad that, by one estimate, the annual turnover rate was as high as 600 percent. Employers didn’t seem to care. They weren’t moved in the slightest to do anything to ameliorate the conditions that were creating this astronomical turnover. Conditions like overcrowded, lice-infested bunkhouses. Another author, John E. Haynes, described some of the logging camps in Minnesota.

Bunkhouses were ventilated only by doors at each end and one or two small skylights in the roof. One or perhaps two iron stoves, kept fired all night, provided heat. The poor ventilation compounded sanitary problems. The men worked 11-hour days in the cold Minnesota winter and generally wore two or three sets of underwear in addition to their outer garments. The combination of wet snow and hard labor soaked the jacks’ clothes every day, but the men were without washing facilities either for themselves or what they wore…layers of sets of wet-from-sweat clothes hung near the stove every night to dry for the next day. The steam from the clothes joined the stench of tightly-packed, unwashed bodies in the bunkhouses, prompting one Wobbly to comment that “the bunkhouses in which the lumberjacks sleep are enough to gag a skunk.”

Toilet facilities were primitive in the extreme, says Haynes. Privies were simply shallow, open pits with a roof and some poles for seats. The privies were rarely treated with lime or even covered with dirt. To the men who hired the workers, all of this was perfectly okay. If you were a worker who didn’t think it was okay, your option was to quit. A perfectly fine arrangement, correct? Not so, said union organizers, specifically the IWW, or Industrial Workers of the World – also known as the Wobblies. It was workers just like these loggers that the Wobblies focused their energies on. Any wage earner could be a Wobbly, says labor historian Gibbs M. Smith. It didn’t matter what your occupation, race, creed, or sex was. You could be Black or White or Asian, American or foreign-born, skilled or unskilled. This openness toward unskilled workers is what set the IWW apart from the American Federation of Labor. The AFL adhered to a craft union philosophy and were too conservative for the Wobblies. Consisting mainly of skilled workers, the AFL refused to organize the unskilled. “Big Bill” Haywood led the IWW. He favored industrial unionism over craft unionism, stating:

We are going to go down into the gutter to get at the mass of workers and bring them up to a decent plane of living.

Machinery and advancing technology were progressively eliminating the need for skilled craftsmen, Smith writes. The IWW believed that since the employers had united into great combinations of capital to maintain supremacy, it was necessary to organize all workers, skilled and unskilled, into industrial unions “to wage effective war on the integrated power of modern industry.” In their efforts to organize loggers, it wasn’t just conditions in the camps that the IWW protested. They strongly objected to the “job sharks” who supplied laborers to the mills and logging camps. Because working conditions were so awful, employers hired agents to snare fresh bodies, as Hughes and Beckwith put it. In the winter of 1911-12, the IWW took a stand against the logging companies and their job agents in Aberdeen, Washington. Off-duty laborers would pass by and congregate near the Sailors’ Union Hall in downtown Aberdeen, where IWW organizers had begun their outreach efforts. The favored spot was near a saloon owned by a city councilman. The City Council didn’t like the IWW, seeing them as subversives, so it passed an ordinance prohibiting street speaking in the locality. But the City Council chose to look the other way for one group in particular, another group that was interested in the laborers, or at least in their souls – the Salvation Army. The Wobblies didn’t like this one bit. Joe Hill, an immigrant from Sweden who had worked his way across the country as a laborer in factories and mines, and on farms and waterfronts, had joined the IWW once he made it to California. He mocked the “Starvation Army” in a song that parodied their hymn “In the Sweet Bye and Bye”:

Long-haired preachers come out every night, Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right; But when asked how ’bout something to eat They will answer with voices so sweet: You will eat, bye and bye, In that glorious land above the sky; Work and pray, live on hay, You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.

The IWW kept up their protests of the Aberdeen ordinance, suffering vigilante violence in the process. In January of 1912, the City Council passed another ordinance – this time outlawing all street speaking. The Salvation Army, too, had to lie low. But the IWW wasn’t contented. This was about the principle of free speech as well as organizing workers. They staged another protest, complete with singing, soap boxing, a boycott of local merchants, and a lot of bad publicity. Eager to avoid the kind of destructive conflict that had gripped Spokane a couple of years earlier during IWW-led protests, the city of Aberdeen reached a settlement with the Wobblies. They consented, finally, to street speaking. The Wobblies moved the free-speech fight on to other cities, and organized a massive strike that closed every wood-working plant on Grays Harbor. The timber industry eventually met many IWW demands, such as clean bedding and the 8-hour workday, during World War I. According to Hughes and Beckwith:

Frightened of paralyzing strikes that could harm logging of spruce for military planes, the U.S. Army created a special Spruce Production Division. With military efficiency the “Spruce Army” improved conditions more than the Wobblies ever had.

The Wobblies didn’t get everything they set out to get as an organization. They wanted all workers united into “One Big Union.” It hasn’t happened. They wanted workers to unite to overthrow capitalism. Capitalism is still here, a hundred years later (and so are the Wobblies). But the city fathers in Aberdeen became afraid of them. Lumber company owners were afraid of them, and so were Chamber of Commerce managers. The U.S. Army became afraid of them. That’s quite a feat.

References

Haynes, John E. 1971. Revolt of the “Timber Beasts”: IWW Lumber Strike in Minnesota. St Paul: Minnesota Historical Society.
Hughes, John C. and Beckwith, Ryan Teague, eds. 2005. On the Harbor: From Black Friday to Nirvana. Las Vegas: Stephens Press.
Smith, Gibbs M. 1969. Joe Hill. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

“We’ll Get You Pie Before You Die,” by Alpha Unit

The fruits of their labor built America’s cities and homes, historians say, and made some people very rich. Nowadays we call them loggers.

Once upon a time they were lumberjacks. Or “timber beasts,” if you really didn’t like them.

Life was rough and frequently cut short when you did this kind of work. At the beginning of the twentieth century when serious efforts were made to unionize the logging industry, most workers in the country were virtual slaves, called “wage slaves” by organizers, according to journalists John C. Hughes and Ryan Teague Beckwith. In their book On the Harbor: From Black Friday to Nirvana, they chronicle unionization efforts for loggers in the Pacific Northwest, and go into detail about their working conditions.

Record-keeping wasn’t very good in those days, but a man’s life expectancy as a logger was said to be about seven years, they say.

Seldom a week went by without a buddy killed or maimed by a rolling log, a falling tree, a giant splinter run through him, or a whipping cable slicing him in two.

From the time he got out of bed in the morning, a logger never knew if he’d make it back to the bunkhouse in one piece, as one writer put it. Hughes and Beckwith continue:

Sawmill workers and shingle weavers lost fingers so routinely that it was practically a rite of passage. Hands and arms went flying, too, in geysers of blood, as the saws shrieked.

None of this made much of a difference to the employers. None of what many workers take for granted today existed then in this industry – no safety regulations, no inspections of gear or practices, and certainly no health insurance or rehabilitation programs. According to Hughes and Beckwith:

When a logger was crippled or killed, the bosses often said it was his own damn fault. He was too careless, or a greenhorn. Maybe just unlucky. “Joe’s number was up. We’re burnin’ daylight. Let’s get the lead out!”

These workers were easy to take advantage of. They were typically single young men, often recent immigrants. Many were migrants who followed timber jobs as they became available. But conditions in lumber camps were so bad that, by one estimate, the annual turnover rate was as high as 600 percent.

Employers didn’t seem to care. They weren’t moved in the slightest to do anything to ameliorate the conditions that were creating this astronomical turnover. Conditions like overcrowded, lice-infested bunkhouses. Another author, John E. Haynes, described some of the logging camps in Minnesota.

Bunkhouses were ventilated only by doors at each end and one or two small skylights in the roof. One or perhaps two iron stoves, kept fired all night, provided heat. The poor ventilation compounded sanitary problems.

The men worked 11-hour days in the cold Minnesota winter and generally wore two or three sets of underwear in addition to their outer garments. The combination of wet snow and hard labor soaked the jacks’ clothes every day, but the men were without washing facilities either for themselves or what they wore…layers of sets of wet-from-sweat clothes hung near the stove every night to dry for the next day.

The steam from the clothes joined the stench of tightly-packed, unwashed bodies in the bunkhouses, prompting one Wobbly to comment that “the bunkhouses in which the lumberjacks sleep are enough to gag a skunk.”

Toilet facilities were primitive in the extreme, says Haynes. Privies were simply shallow, open pits with a roof and some poles for seats. The privies were rarely treated with lime or even covered with dirt.

To the men who hired the workers, all of this was perfectly okay. If you were a worker who didn’t think it was okay, your option was to quit. A perfectly fine arrangement, correct?

Not so, said union organizers, specifically the IWW, or Industrial Workers of the World – also known as the Wobblies. It was workers just like these loggers that the Wobblies focused their energies on.

Any wage earner could be a Wobbly, says labor historian Gibbs M. Smith. It didn’t matter what your occupation, race, creed, or sex was. You could be Black or White or Asian, American or foreign-born, skilled or unskilled.

This openness toward unskilled workers is what set the IWW apart from the American Federation of Labor. The AFL adhered to a craft union philosophy and were too conservative for the Wobblies. Consisting mainly of skilled workers, the AFL refused to organize the unskilled.

“Big Bill” Haywood led the IWW. He favored industrial unionism over craft unionism, stating:

We are going to go down into the gutter to get at the mass of workers and bring them up to a decent plane of living.

Machinery and advancing technology were progressively eliminating the need for skilled craftsmen, Smith writes. The IWW believed that since the employers had united into great combinations of capital to maintain supremacy, it was necessary to organize all workers, skilled and unskilled, into industrial unions “to wage effective war on the integrated power of modern industry.”

In their efforts to organize loggers, it wasn’t just conditions in the camps that the IWW protested. They strongly objected to the “job sharks” who supplied laborers to the mills and logging camps. Because working conditions were so awful, employers hired agents to snare fresh bodies, as Hughes and Beckwith put it.

In the winter of 1911-12, the IWW took a stand against the logging companies and their job agents in Aberdeen, Washington.

Off-duty laborers would pass by and congregate near the Sailors’ Union Hall in downtown Aberdeen, where IWW organizers had begun their outreach efforts. The favored spot was near a saloon owned by a city councilman. The City Council didn’t like the IWW, seeing them as subversives, so it passed an ordinance prohibiting street speaking in the locality.

But the City Council chose to look the other way for one group in particular, another group that was interested in the laborers, or at least in their souls – the Salvation Army.

The Wobblies didn’t like this one bit.

Joe Hill, an immigrant from Sweden who had worked his way across the country as a laborer in factories and mines, and on farms and waterfronts, had joined the IWW once he made it to California. He mocked the “Starvation Army” in a song that parodied their hymn “In the Sweet Bye and Bye”:

Long-haired preachers come out every night, Try to tell you what’s wrong and what’s right; But when asked how ’bout something to eat They will answer with voices so sweet:

You will eat, bye and bye, In that glorious land above the sky; Work and pray, live on hay, You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.

The IWW kept up their protests of the Aberdeen ordinance, suffering vigilante violence in the process. In January of 1912, the City Council passed another ordinance – this time outlawing all street speaking. The Salvation Army, too, had to lie low.

But the IWW wasn’t contented. This was about the principle of free speech as well as organizing workers. They staged another protest, complete with singing, soap boxing, a boycott of local merchants, and a lot of bad publicity.

Eager to avoid the kind of destructive conflict that had gripped Spokane a couple of years earlier during IWW-led protests, the city of Aberdeen reached a settlement with the Wobblies. They consented, finally, to street speaking. The Wobblies moved the free-speech fight on to other cities, and organized a massive strike that closed every wood-working plant on Grays Harbor.

The timber industry eventually met many IWW demands, such as clean bedding and the 8-hour workday, during World War I. According to Hughes and Beckwith:

Frightened of paralyzing strikes that could harm logging of spruce for military planes, the U.S. Army created a special Spruce Production Division. With military efficiency the “Spruce Army” improved conditions more than the Wobblies ever had.

The Wobblies didn’t get everything they set out to get as an organization. They wanted all workers united into “One Big Union.” It hasn’t happened. They wanted workers to unite to overthrow capitalism. Capitalism is still here, a hundred years later (and so are the Wobblies).

But the city fathers in Aberdeen became afraid of them. Lumber company owners were afraid of them, and so were Chamber of Commerce managers. The U.S. Army became afraid of them. That’s quite a feat.

References

Haynes, John E. 1971. Revolt of the “Timber Beasts”: IWW Lumber Strike in Minnesota. St Paul: Minnesota Historical Society.
Hughes, John C. and Beckwith, Ryan Teague, eds. 2005. On the Harbor: From Black Friday to Nirvana. Las Vegas: Stephens Press.
Smith, Gibbs M. 1969. Joe Hill. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

He Said He Would Lend Her an Ear

But this not what he meant.

A truly bizarre story. What in the Hell is with this chick anyway? The White nationalists are going nuts over this story as proof of Black depravity. True, Blacks can be depraved, but this is not an example of such. If anything, this chick appears to be not right at all in the head. This is about a crazy person more than anything else.

She only got 60 days? Damn.

She apologized profusely? Well, that’s nice, but you still need to do the time. She’s apparently dangerous, and 60 days ain’t long enough to let her think it over.

She lost her junior high school teaching job? This chick was a teacher? Jeez.

Pretty nice looking chick though. Too bad she’s a fuckin cannibal.

error

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)