I’m back with a few more interesting monsters from the great state of Texas.

Ottine Swamp Thing

East of San Antonio is the Ottine Wetlands. They are a relict ecosystem believed to be 12,000 years old.

And in case you’re wondering, a relict ecosystem is a particular habitat that exists in geographic isolation from an original, larger ecosystem.

The wetlands are a boggy refuge of unexpected flora and fauna that one would typically come across in the southeastern US.

The swamps are also home to legendary creatures of all sorts. Perhaps the most spooky is the Ottine Swamp Thing.

As with all cryptids, you will always run across them when you don’t have a camera, or the lighting is bad.

You are more likely to see the thing in the fall and winter when there are fewer people in the wetlands and Palmetto Park, which is on the northern edge of the boggy, swampy area.

Pick a day when the skies are lead and a persistent chilly drizzle is falling. Put on your wellies and explore the bogs, the dense expanse of woodland, and extinct mud boils. Cross murky lagoons and mud-sucking swamp.

At the end of the day, as you head back to your car, a giant primate-looking creature will rear up out of the woods at the treeline and start throwing rocks at you. And as you run for your car, it will give chase. And if you make it into your vehicle, the creature will jostle your car until you can finally get it in drive and peel rubber to get back to civilization.

And of course, you forgot to take a picture.

Horizon City Monster

Horizon City is south and east of El Paso. A town of 23,000 people. The city sits on the edge of the desert. An odd place for a city to spring up. And Horizon City’s origins are just as odd. You can read a brief history on Wikipedia.

Back before Horizon City became a city, Cecelia Montañez, in the early 1970s, saw a primate-looking creature more than 7 feet tall. It had faded dark brown fur and was standing on the edge of the desert, just beyond a street intersection. She then watched it turn and walk off into the desert.

Ms. Montañez wasn’t the only one to see the west Texas Bigfoot. Other residents of the town saw the creature as well. Both where Ms. Montañez first saw it and also near Lake El Paso.

Ms. Montañez saw the creature one more time, this time near her home. Was it looking for her?

While there are those naysayers, those who’ve seen the creature are adamant it exists.

Bigfoot in the desert. Who would’ve thought to find him there.

Lake Worth Monster

Prank or genuine sighting? That’s the question. And the evidence seems to be on the prank side. But then the “evidence” appears to be suspect itself.

In July of 1969 local citizens reported seeing a creature that was half-man, half-goat with scales and claws at Lake Worth, which is part of the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge just outside of Fort Worth.

There were more than one sighting of the goat-man. One of which included the monster throwing a tire at people, and another where the creature jumped out of a tree onto a car. There was also a report of a 18 inch rip in the metal of a car, supposedly made by the thing’s claws.

When school began that year, the reports of monster sightings stopped, leading many to believe the monster was the creation of high school pranksters.

Some 36 years later, a reporter with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram received an anonymous letter stating the monster was in fact a prank designed by high school students to scare people. But why wait 36 years to confess anonymously? Why confess at all?

And 3 years later another anonymous letter made its way to Fort Worth, Texas magazine in which the writer claimed to have thrown the tire at people. But why wait 39 years and send the letter anonymously? Why bother?

Or was this an attempt to create more hype regarding the goat-man?

Nevertheless, to this day campers have reported hearing on hot humid nights a mournful bleating echoing across the waters of the lake.

Prank? Sasquatch? Or maybe both. And no one has yet explained that 18 inch rip in the car metal.

Beast of Bear Creek

What comes as a surprise to many people is the fact that Texas and Louisiana have a rich history of werewolves and other shape-shifting creatures. 

As with all legends, it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction. Although there usually is an element of truth somewhere in the legend.

And such may be the case with the Beast of Bear Creek.

Kimble County is located northwest of San Antonio and west of Austin. It is a largely rural area of the Texas Hill Country and is home to the ghost town of Cleo.

As the story goes, when settlers started moving into the area in the second half of the 19th century and the remnants of the native American tribes were forced out, a shaman decided to get revenge.

He had the ability to shape-shift into a wolf, which he did in order to destroy the herds of livestock of the white settlers. And if the transformed medicine man found any settlers out and about at night, he would kill them too.

The werewolf was particularly active around the town of Cleo. The residents of the town so believed in him they immortalized the beast’s face in a rock carving.

The image was carved by N. Q. Patterson and is called the Cleo Face.

It shows a figure that is part human and part animal. It has a very broad nose and its lips are drawn back in a vicious snarl revealing large fangs.

What is unknown is did Patterson actually see the transformed shaman, did he base the carving on reports of others, or did he just let his imagination create the carving?

The Cleo Face is now on private land and unavailable to the public. It’s apparently badly weather eroded.

With the death of the town of Cleo, the sightings of the beast have disappeared. Perhaps the shaman was satisfied with the death of the town in exchange for the death of his tribe.

Until next time, happy reading!

CW