The Sixes River wild man at Thompson Flat and the Harrison cabin (1904)

The Sixes River runs 31 miles through the southern Oregon Coast Range, in northern Curry County, close to the Coos County line. In 1904 its gold placers drew miners and prospectors. Their supplies and their news came through Myrtle Point.

For about ten years, stories had come out of the district. They told of "a queer and terrible monster which walks erect and which has been seen by scores of miners and prospectors." In March 1904 the Myrtle Point Enterprise reported that the "wild man" of the Sixes was back. "The appearance again of the 'wild man' of the Sixes has thrown some of the miners into a state of excitement and fear."

Evening at Thompson Flat. Wm. Ward and a young man named Burlison "were sitting by the fire" when "they heard something walking around the cabin which resembled a man walking." It shook the corner of the cabin. It "kept up a frightful noise all the time." The paper tied the sound to "the same whistling that has so many times warned the venturesome miners of the approach of the hairy man and caused them to flee in abject fear."

Ward walked to the door. He "could see the monster plainly as it walked away." He took a shot at it with his rifle. The bullet went wild.

A few days later Ward was at the Harrison cabin. "About 5 o'clock in the morning the wild man gave the door of the cabin a vigorous shaking, which aroused Ward and one of the Harrison boys." The two went out armed. "Ward fired at the man and he answered by sending a four-pound rock at Ward's head, but his aim was a little too high."

The article described the creature as "about seven feet high," with "broad hands and feet" and a body "covered by a prolific growth of hair." No colour was given. "He looks like the very devil," it said. He could "outrun or jump anything else that has ever been known," and "throw rocks with wonderful force and accuracy." The Lane County Leader went further. It compared him to "a 7-foot gorilla with broad shoulders, unlike anything else."

The story ran across Oregon. The Plaindealer in Roseburg carried a report on 21 March 1904. The Daily Capital Journal in Salem printed "The Sixes Wild Man Again" on 30 March. The Lane County Leader followed on 7 April.

No one investigated. No rock was kept. No tracks, hair or casts were reported. No first-hand statement from Ward, Burlison or the Harrison family has been found.

No hoax claim or debunking of this case has been published. Still, the setting invites caution. Frontier "wild man" stories were often half-humorous filler, and this one was billed as a sequel. A 1901 report from the Coos and Curry mountains described "moccasined" tracks 16 inches long and a fern bed bearing "the imprint of a man," details that read more like a hermit than an animal. Ward's looks were brief. Once at night as it walked off. Once at dawn.

Researchers treat the Sixes wild man as an early Bigfoot report. John Green included it in The Sasquatch File. Robert Walls, writing in the Oregon Encyclopedia, begins Oregon's Bigfoot record with the 1904 Sixes River sightings. That is about 20 years before miners at Ape Canyon in Washington reported their own cabin under attack and rocks thrown. The Sixes stories kept coming. In 1936 and 1937 the Myrtle Point Herald told of Indian devils, weird laughter and an "Ape Man Story of South Sixes."