The Sister Lakes Monster of Dewey Lake: Monster Town, U.S.A.

Sister Lakes was a resort community of about 1,000 people in Cass County, Michigan. In summer its population grew roughly sixfold, and seasonal pickers worked the berry farms around Dowagiac. Some locals later said they had seen a hairy two-legged creature near Dewey Lake since 1962. They had kept quiet.

Tuesday night, June 9, 1964. Gordon Brown, a 25-year-old farm worker, pulled into the Utrup farm south of Dewey Lake with his wife Mary Brown, his brother Randall and a neighbour girl. Between a barn and a shed stood a large creature. They described it as "nine feet tall, roughly 500 pounds with a black leathery face and eyes that glowed red." Its cry was "like a crying baby or sometimes a honking goose."

The brothers found a flashlight and chased it for 300 yards. Then they noticed a tree where one hadn't been before. It was the monster, standing still. "Well, wowee! This thing was a-standing there," Gordon told Chicago's American. "Well we hightailed it right out of there." In another account he saw it in the headlights of his car. "It's no bear," he insisted.

Evelyn Utrup called the sheriff's deputies. She said the beast had chased her into her home, and that her dogs barked and drove it away. "The impact of the monster's stomping shook the ground and the house." A footprint measured about 3¾ inches across the heel. A plaster cast failed in the sandy soil.

June 11, 9:15 in the morning. Joyce Smith and sisters Gail and Patsy Clayton were on a road when the monster emerged from the woods and crossed in front of them on two legs. Joyce fainted. Patsy described it as seven feet tall with a black face and definitely not human. On June 12, Robert Walker of Dowagiac reported large ape-like tracks near the lake. Deputies thought they looked more like a dog's.

Within a week an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 monster hunters arrived, some from Ohio. Sheriff Robert "Bud" Dool set up roadblocks. "It's getting mighty dangerous with 3,000 strangers prowling about at night with guns," he said. On June 12 a hunter fired twice at a black Shetland pony, mistaking it for the monster. He missed both times.

A rumour that the monster had eaten four people sent migrant pickers fleeing. Taverns poured Monster Brew. Reid's Drive-In sold a Monster Burger, and Harvey's in Dowagiac sold $7.95 monster-hunting kits. Chicago papers called it Monster Town, U.S.A. The Chicago Tribune wrote that the monster had jabbed berry farms in the pocketbook. Mary Brown's crude sketch ran on the front page of Chicago's American under a sarcastic headline. "Have You Seen This Thing?"

Dool and conservation officer William Rowe dismissed the claims. County officials favoured a black bear, and University of Michigan zoologist Dr. William H. Burt agreed, suggesting the witnesses overestimated its height. Professor Frank Eggelton proposed an escaped circus gorilla. A 1983 South Bend Tribune column suggested intoxicated strawberry pickers had imagined it. The press mocked the witnesses. None was ever shown to have hoaxed.

By June 14 the scare was fading. The South Bend Tribune reported that "nobody seems frightened anymore." West Virginia reporters blamed their own 1964 monster excitement in Grafton on the Sister Lakes story. Today the Dewey Lake Monster has its own beer, and a 2016 boat parade celebrated it. The track was never cast. The creature was never found.