The Grafton Monster

This story appeared in the Grafton Sentinel on June 19, 1964.
Thanks to the Taylor County Library for unearthing it.

""Monster" Result of Spring Fever, Wild Imagination"

"Grafton's alleged "monster," reportedly the personification of the active imaginations of a number of teen-agers, couldn't have shown up in the Riverside drive area if it wanted to on Thursday night, too many teenagers and adults were roaming that section of the city.
"At approximately 10 p.m. it was reported that cares were almost bumper-to-bumper along river drive and a large number of cars were pulled off the road to permit joining in the area's most popular sport in recent years "monster" hunting.
"Some 20 reports from persons allegedly seeing the "monster" have been quoted since Tuesday night when the "all white creature without a discernible head" first was reported seen near the city rock quarry. Wednesday night about 30 teen-agers engaged in a "monster hunt," but by Thursday night the number of teen-agers had doubled and a number of adults had joined in the action.
"A combination of spring fever, lack of area recreation activities, and recent publicity given a Michigan...have a "monster" which followed people, are believed to have laid the basis for the wildly imaginative story about a Grafton "monster."
"A routine check by The Sentinel showed that the "monster" story may have resulted from the fact that an individual pushing a handcart loaded high with boxes, walked along Riverside drive on Tuesday night. In the half-light of late evening, this person and the loaded handcart apparently took on a weird shape for persons having just read the story of the Michigan "monster."
"It's fairly certain that "monsters" don't go around pushing handcarts loaded with boxes."

There's not much information available about this 40+ year old event. There have been a couple of different researchers asking questions about this sighting, so if you're interested, there is more to the story than this newspaper article. If you want to know more, you can start with this Grafton Yahoo! Group and search messages from July of 2007.