A Sea Monster in Lee's Creek?

Every state has its legends and strange stories. As reported in the June 27, 1927, edition of the Baxter Bulletin, this may be stranger than most.

“Sea Monster in Creek,” “Crawford County Man Sees One That Spits Ink, Strange Phenomenon” were the titles that preceded the tale repeated from the Associated Press out of Fort Smith.

Tom Ross, “an angler with an imagination” who is compared to Baron Munchausen and a couple of other unbelievable characters, returned from a day of fishing on Lee’s Creek with a tale that is apparently hard to believe.

The fisherman, while standing on the bank fishing, reported seeing “The water suddenly turn a dark color. Right before his startled eyes the peculiar coloring continued to spread over the surface of the placid stream until it extended to a space of 10 feet in diameter.” 

It was speculated it could be “a devil fish, an octopus or a hobgoblin of the nether region.” It was obvious from the tone of the article that Mr. Ross was less than credible. It would be interesting to see if the sighting led to any further sightings or a legend being born.

With the popularity of "monster-hunting reality shows" (I say this tongue-in-cheek) on television this was a story that caught my eye as I was researching odd stories from Arkansas. I was delighted to add the above postcard to my collection to go with the story. From the photo, the creek doesn't look very deep. Finding a sea monster that far inland might be difficult.

*I noticed that the gentleman never reported actually seeing a creature of any kind, just the water changing color and spreading out over the creek. It would be interesting to see if the local paper attempted to find a reasonable explanation for the phenomenon as the Mountain Echo did when “black rain” fell in Marion County.