The Bear Lake Monster: Joseph C. Rich's settler sightings

Bear Lake Valley. 1868. Mormon pioneers had settled towns like Paris, St. Charles, Fish Haven and South Eden. Joseph C. Rich was a correspondent for the Deseret News. On July 27, 1868, he wrote to the editor from "Paris, Rich Co., UT." The letter ran on August 3.

Rich began with what he called Shoshone tradition. A monster "of the serpent kind, but having legs about 18 inches long." It could crawl out of the water and spurt water from its mouth. It had carried off members of the tribe while they bathed. It had not been seen since the buffalo left the valley. "This Bear Lake Monster, they now call it, is causing a great deal of excitement up here."

S. M. Johnson was at South Eden, on the east shore. At first he thought he saw "a drowned person" in the lake. Then "two or three feet of some kind of an animal" rose above the water. On each side of its head were "ears or bunches" nearly as large as a pint cup.

Then the west shore road. Four men and six women were driving north from Fish Haven, about halfway to St. Charles. N. C. Davis and Allen Davis. Thomas Slight and J. Collings. Six women, unnamed. Something was in the water. Slight "distinctly saw the sides of a very large animal." Not less than ninety feet long, he judged. Another witness said forty. As one turned, Slight saw its "brownish color."

There was more than one. The letter, as later summarised, counted four large ones and six small ones. They swam southward "much faster than a horse could run on land." Witnesses described "waves that rolled up in front and on each side of them, as being three feet high."

Charles C. Rich, an LDS apostle and Joseph's father, added a note. "I have talked with some of the parties in relation to the monster story, and it is as Joseph has stated it."

August 27, 1868. Covering Brigham Young's trip north, the Deseret Evening News reported the creatures "have been lately seen by numbers, and at different times and places, and their descriptions agree." One witness had timed them with his watch. Young went "at halves" with Phineas W. Cook on a trap. A barbed hook baited with mutton, a buoy, and a 300 foot rope Young lent. In 1876 Young asked after his rope. Cook had worked hard, he said, but "did not succeed."

About 26 years later, Rich reportedly called the stories "a wonderful first-class lie." The original source of that confession has not been traced. Writers suggest he wanted visitors in Rich County, perhaps for a lakeside resort he ran. Some read the letter as tongue in cheek all along. It closed with a pun: "Is it fish, flesh or serpent, amphibious, am-fabulous or a great big fib?"

Other answers came. On June 28, 1877, Lt. Samuel E. Tillman of the U.S. survey checked a reported phenomenon and found two bulls fighting in the lake. A 1991 Deseret News headline offered "Monster or Mere Mirage."

The sightings did not stop. Bishop William Budge reported a smaller, furred animal in 1874. Glade Myler saw "a huge body" rise in 1961. In June 2002 Brian Hirschi described two humps, then a serpent leaping from the water. Skeptics noted his account surfaced at the start of tourist season. In 1996 the creature was named Isabella. In 2024 the William G. Pomeroy Foundation placed a marker at Garden City, Utah.