YEAR: 1920

SEASON: Unknown

DATE: 1900-1940

STATE: Arizona

COUNTY: Gila County

NEAREST TOWN: Payson, Arizona

NEAREST ROAD: State Route 87

OBSERVED: This report has incidents going back 70 years or more. It is 100% true and as accurate as possible.
In the early years of this century, there was a miner who had a camp located in the Mazatzal wilderness area of central Arizona. (Mazatzal is pronounced "Mada-zell").

This miner had located a rich vein of silver, and hauled out his silver ore to the Globe-Phoenix stage route, once a month. He would barter his silver ore for the supplies and food he needed.

On one of these trips out to the stage route, he had his 9 burros trailing behind him, each carrying his ore. In an area near the top of of deep canyon, he came face to face with 2 Bigfoot creatures. They were standing in the middle of the trail, and would not budge. After a minute or 2 of the face-off, the miner walked his burros around the 2 Bigfoot creatures, who were still standing there, refusing to move.

On the way back to his camp, the 2 creatures had gone back out into the forest.

The miner described the 2 as one adult male, and one adult female. The larger one was about 8 feet tall, and quite heavy.The female had breasts, and was quite a bit shorter and lighter than the male.

It should be noted, that this incident happened just after WW I, and the name "Bigfoot" had not been coined.

This miner died later while walking out from his camp, and was buried next to the trail. There is a small headstone marking his grave site.

The camp was later taken over by another miner in the 1930's (name witheld). The second miner did not report and unusual incidents.

The second miner befriended my dad, and gave the property to my dad, in 1940. My dad made numerous trips into the camp, the first being in the winter of 1940.

At this time, I should give you a picture description of the mine camp, we nicknamed 'Glengowan". It consisted of 2 log cabins, built on the southwest corner of a 3 acre clearing, at the bottom of a deep canyon, that runs east and west, and is several miles miles long.

There were 2 other buildings at this site. One a blacksmith shop and the other a storage shed. These 2 buildings deteriorated from age, and their remains are still there.

The 2 log cabins were small, and were located just 3 or 4 feet apart. The smaller one was where the first miner lived, and was "chinked". (That means it was filled in between the logs in the walls, making it warm during cold weather.)

Back to the story. The first night my dad and his friend were there, they decided to sleep in the warmer, small cabin, as it was warmer, and had a fireplace for warmth.
His friend placed his iron cot butted up against the door, which was made of heavy wood, and had leather hinges.

That night something pushed the heavy door wide open, causing the 2 men to be dumped out of their beds, onto the dirt floor. They heard nothing, and saw nothing, and smelled nothing. After finding a flashlight and a carbide lantern, they saw that whatever it wwas, and caused the legs of the 2 beds to dig a long deep groove into the dirt floor. The outside ground was frozen, and no tracks were found.

Then in about 1943, by dad took a bunch kids to the cabins for a week long camping trip. The first chore for us kids was to collect some firewood. We went down to the far end of the clearing, and were chopping firewood.

At this time we heard an extremely loud screaming, bellowing yell coming from the woods, about 50 feet away. We dropped out rifle, and axe and ran back to the cabins. My dad came back to the location with us, but whatever it was, had gone back into the forest. It should be noted that the yell could easily have been heard for half mile or more.

The following morning, myself and my friend, Richard Dumont, went down to the creek to get a pail of water. We both saw clearly 3 sets of small barefooted footprints, walking down stream.
They looked like small children had been walking in the creek bottom. However, it was miles from any civilization, and there was a ranch house at the bottom end of the creek. There were no further incidents on that trip.

A year or so later some of us teenagers returned to Glengowan with my dad. On the way out, on the trail coming out of the canyon, we heard something running away from us, going straight downhill. We had a Rhodesian Ridgeback dog, named Bunzo, with us. My dad suggested that we turn the dog loose, to see what he would do. The dog ran downhill after whatever it was. We caught up with the dog about 1/4 mile down the hillside. At that place we found where the track crossed over an area with no leaves or pine needles, and the tracks were very clear in the soft dirt. The tracks were 17 1/2 inches long, and had a 6 ft. stride.

Yet on another trip, my older brother, and a bunch of his friends who had just gotten out of the service after WW II. They had a big party around a bonfire, and later went to bed. Part of the bunch were in the large cabin, and the others in the nearby smaller cabin. Late that night, something jumped on top the large cabin roof, yelling and screaming, and then jumped over on to the roof of the smaller cabin. The men began shooting their .30-30's through the roof to see if they could hit whatever it was running around on the roofs. They must have all missed, as there was no blood found the next morning.

A year or so later, I returned to Glengowan with my dad. It was in the summer months. While doing the breakfast dishes, my dad suddenly grabbed his .300 Savage deer rifle, and ran out of the cabin to a nearby rock wall. I did not see the creature. My dad described it as a juvenile
"Abominable Snowman." (Remember, the name Bigfoot still hadn't been coined). He said it had a "pie face" (flat) it's eyes were dark brown or black, and were round. It had short dark hair all over it's face. No further description.

This sighting report is as accurate as possible, due to the time since these events happened.

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