Field file · Hominid · Local legend
Lockridge Monster
Also known as Lockridge Beast, Jefferson County Monster
A bear-bodied, monkey-faced creature on a turkey farm in Lockridge, Iowa, left 10-inch tracks and half-eaten turkeys in autumn 1975.
In the fall of 1975 the quiet turkey-farming community of Lockridge in Jefferson County, southeast Iowa, was suddenly the center of a monster story. An Associated Press report, running under a headline that played on the phrase “monkey with,” said skeptics were calling the animal “the Lockridge Monster,” but the families who claimed to have seen it did not find it funny.
The key sighting is usually dated to October 3, 1975, when farmer Herb Peiffer was driving his tractor to his turkey pens and caught a dark, shaggy animal in the headlights. As the Pine Barrens Institute tells it, the creature stood up on its hind legs and bounded out of the way. Peiffer described a bushy, dark-haired animal nearly five feet tall, bear-shaped, running like a man, with an apelike face. He was reluctant at first to tell his family, fearing they would make fun of him. According to the AP, a hunter named Lowell Adkins soon found 10-inch tracks near the remains of four partly eaten turkeys, and, according to the Pine Barrens Institute, Mrs. Peiffer noticed apples with bites taken out of them still hanging about seven feet up a tree.
Another farm wife, Gloria Olson, told the AP she had seen the animal at dusk beside a deserted farmyard, and that it seemed to have a monkey’s face and hair all over its body. Sightings and tracks reportedly turned up along Turkey Creek, and a hunting party combed the woods without result. Some parents kept their children indoors after dark, and Mrs. Olson warned that anyone playing a joke might get shot. The sightings faded quickly, and the Lockridge Monster has never been identified.
Today the story is a staple of Iowa cryptid lists. It is often compared with Bigfoot, but a Bigfoot researcher quoted by Iowa City’s Little Village magazine pointed out that Sasquatch tracks are usually about twice as long as those found at Lockridge, and that slaughtering livestock would be out of character for the vegetarian Bigfoot of her own theory. The creature is therefore usually treated as its own unsolved local mystery.
What witnesses describe
Described as a bushy, dark-haired, bear-shaped animal about five feet tall that ran upright like a man and had a monkey- or ape-like face. It left roughly 10-inch tracks and was said to have killed turkeys.
Where and when it’s seen
Farmland, cornfields, abandoned farmsteads and wooded creek bottoms near Lockridge, along Turkey Creek in Jefferson County, Iowa. All the reports date from the summer and fall of 1975.
Notable sightings
- July 1975A couple sees a monkey-faced animal Near Lockridge, Iowa
According to the Pine Barrens Institute, Wendell and Gloria Olson saw an upright, bushy-haired creature with a monkey’s face moving among the buildings of a deserted farm. The sighting attracted little attention until later.
- October 3, 1975Peiffer’s tractor-light encounter Peiffer turkey farm, Lockridge
Herb Peiffer saw a dark, hairy four-legged animal in his tractor lights on the way to his turkey pens; it reared up and ran off. Soon afterward 10-inch tracks and four partly eaten turkeys were found nearby.
- October 28, 1975The AP puts Lockridge on the map Lockridge, Iowa
An Associated Press story, printed in papers including the Milwaukee Sentinel, reported on the “Lockridge Monster,” the tracks, the turkey kills and local worries about children after dark.
What could explain it?
- A wandering black bear: the AP report noted that some thought the tracks were a bear’s, possibly an animal that had traveled down from northern Wisconsin or Michigan, though locals could not recall bears in Jefferson County.
- An escaped exotic pet, such as a chimpanzee or other ape, which would fit the “monkey face” descriptions.
- Misidentification and suggestion: a single frightening night-time encounter on a farm full of livestock can turn ordinary animal sign – tracks, kills, partly eaten fruit – into a monster story once neighbors start comparing notes.
- Not a Sasquatch: a Bigfoot researcher argued that the 10-inch prints were far smaller than a Bigfoot’s and that killing turkeys did not fit her view of the animal’s diet.
Legend, culture and tourism
The Lockridge Monster is one of the cryptids routinely listed in roundups of Iowa folklore alongside the Van Meter Visitor and the Okoboji lake monster, and the sighting report appears in the BFRO database as a transcribed 1975 newspaper article. There is no festival or statue; the legend survives mainly in magazine features and online cryptid profiles.
Where it’s reported
Sources
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