Arkansas Legends and Lore Appendix
Batesville – White River Monster
The White River Monster is said to inhabit a portion of the White River in Arkansas between Old Grand Glaise near Newport and Rosie near Batesville. In 1973, this area was officially designated by the Arkansas State Legislature to be the White River Monster Refuge. Sightings began around 1915 and continued intermittently until July 1937 and then again in the summer of 1971. Reports of the monster’s size vary from 12 feet to the length of “three or four pickup trucks.” Every report of the monster notes that the creature would rise to the surface of the water and hang out there without moving up or down river. One notable encounter involved Ollie Ritcherson and Joey Dupree, who took a small boat into the river to investigate reports of a large animal that had traversed the land into the river. Their boat seemed to hit the monster just below the surface and they ended up on its back being lifted upwards. The best explanation for the identity of the White River Monster is that it is an aquatic animal that has found itself outside of its normal habitat, most likely an elephant seal that found its way from the ocean up the Mississippi River.
Ozark Mountains Region – Animal Lore
Ozarks Howler
The Ozarks Howler is said to be a large creature, the size of a bear with thick legs, a stout, stocky body, and shaggy black fur. The creature is known to have a haunting call that sounds like the blend of a wolf’s howl and an elk’s bugle. This creature is known to lurk in areas of Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas with sightings going back to the early 1900s. The most recent sightings happened between 2005 to 2010 in Van Buren, Arkansas and in 2015 in Devil’s Den State Park. Some connect the Ozarks Howler to a mythological hound that originated in Scotland and Ireland: the Cù Sìth, said to be a harbinger of death and described as having similar qualities to the Ozarks Howler.
Also related to this legend are tales of the Booger Dog, a ghost dog usually said to be headless with black fur and a large body. The Booger Dog is known to move silently and chase people as they travel from one destination to another, usually seen by hunters or hunting parties. In legends originating in England, the Booger Dog is rumored to be the souls of the unbaptized.
Snawfus
Legends of the Snawfus have circulated in the Ozarks since the early 1900s, mainly due to the folklore collection and writings of Vance Randolph. The Snawfus is said to be an albino deer that exhales blue smoke, which spreads and settles over the Ozark Mountains and can be seen most readily during the early morning hours of winter months. The Snawfus is able to leap very high and is even known to fly into trees to avoid being spotted by people passing through the forest. These creatures reportedly have blooming boughs rather than antlers from either an Arkansas Black Apple or wild plum trees. If a person sees a Snawfus, this is considered a sign of eminent death. One origin of this tale is that an orchardist grafted the branch of an apple tree to the antlers of an albino deer, and another origin tale relates that a hunter ran out of bullets and instead used plum pits to fire at an albino deer.
Hoop Snake
Hoop snakes are said to appear like ordinary black snakes with the addition of a horn on the end of their tails. These snakes are known to take their tail into their mouth in order to quickly roll downhill or to chase people out of the hills where the creatures reside. It is said that hoop snakes are the most poisonous snake to ever exist. If the horn on their tale strikes a tree, the tree will die in one day’s time. Legends of hoop snakes began as early as the late 1700s and were common in the Ozarks as well as other parts of the United States.
Fouke – Boggy Creek Monster
In Fouke, sightings of the Boggy Creek Monster or Fouke Monster abound. The stories began in 1908. The most famous story of the Boggy Creek Monster happened in 1971 when the creature is said to have attacked the Ford family who had just moved into a house near Boggy Creek. Only one week after their move to the home, a creature reached through a window, grabbing and injuring Elizabeth Ford. Hours later, Bobby Ford, Elizabeth’s husband, heard noises outside their house and was also attacked by the creature. Ford reported the incident to the police and was admitted to the hospital for injuries. In 1973 The Legend of Boggy Creek film was released, creating national interest in the legend. Sightings of the creature are common, with the most recent sighting known to the public in 2021. The creature is described as being between six and eight feet tall, having red, glowing eyes, and shaggy fur covering its entire body. This creature is often described as appearing similar to a mix between a man and an ape. The Boggy Creek Monster is connected to legends of Bigfoot or Sasquatch.
Gurdon – Gurdon Ghost Light
The Gurdon Light is a mysterious light above the railroad tracks outside of Gurdon, Arkansas about 85 miles south of Little Rock on Highway 67, east of Interstate 30. Reports of the light have been continuous since the early 1930s. The bobbing light appears in the nearby wooded area and has been described as blue, green, white, or orange in color. There are two popular local legends that attribute the light to the death of a railroad worker whose lantern now haunts the area. In December 1931, William McClain, a foreman with the Missouri-Pacific railroad, was murdered by one of his employees after an argument and now haunts the scene of the crime. A similar legend attributes the light to the death of a railroad worker who fell in front of a train at night and was decapitated—his ghost now searching for his head by lantern-light. In 1994, as the area had become a popular Halloween destination, the program Unsolved Mysteries featured the Gurdon Light on an episode. While the phenomenon remains unexplained, many theories suggest it could be caused by swamp gas or potentially a quartz crystal under Gurdon producing electricity.
–Deena Owens, Folk Arts Assistant for Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts (2022-2024)
Helena – Maple Hill Cemetery
Maple Hill Cemetery is located at the base of Crowley’s Ridge in Helena, Arkansas. It was established in 1865 to replace the local cemetery destroyed during the Battle of Helena on July 4, 1863. The cemetery is said to be haunted by the ghost of Pedro, a loyal dog grieving the murder of his owner. Dr. Emile Overton Moore was shot and killed by another physician in 1893 over an argument regarding the treatment of a patient. According to lore, Pedro stayed at Dr. Moore’s grave, howling in despair. When the dog died, the family buried him in the plot and added a statue on top of the existing monument. It is said you can still hear Pedro crying for his owner.
–Deena Owens, Folk Arts Assistant for Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts (2023-2024)
Jonesboro – Keller’s Chapel and Cemetery
The Keller family founded the Keller Chapel and Cemetery located on the south side of Jonesboro around 1871 when the first member of the Keller family was buried there. The Keller family was struck by tragedy after building the chapel and cemetery; their nine children all died at an early age and are buried in Keller Cemetery. William M. Loudermilk, Arkansas’s oldest surviving confederate soldier, is also buried there. The chapel is white with windows now boarded up and the door almost always locked. Stories of encounters with ghosts at Keller’s Chapel are widespread and plentiful. It is said that if a person parks their car in front of the chapel, the car will turn off on its own and often will not start back up for many hours, leaving visitors stranded. Others tell that if a person knocks on the door of the chapel, a knock will come back from inside the church, sometimes reports of voices and music are said to follow the answering knock. In the cemetery visitors have said they have heard people talking, babies crying, and people singing. Visitors have also said that they have seen rings of fire which disappear or do not produce heat when approached, yet leave a blackened ring in the grass where they had been the night before. Stories about Keller’s Cemetery also include sightings of ghosts, ghost lights, and black silhouettes of spirits that will sometimes chase visitors from the grounds; visitors also report hearing singing and talking at the cemetery.
Monticello – Allen House
The Allen House is located at 705 N. Main Street in Arkansas’s lower Delta town of Monticello. The Victorian mansion was built as a smaller home and moved across the street by 1906 to its present location. The picturesque home features an octagonal turret, a round turret, spires, and a portico with Corinthian columns. It is characterized as one of the most haunted houses in the United States. The primary story of its haunting is connected to the suicide of Ladell Allen Bonner on December 25, 1948. She was the adult daughter of the home’s owners and poisoned herself at the home. Stories include accounts of ghostly noises, descriptions of apparitions of Ladell’s spirit, and narratives of mysterious poltergeist phenomena such as the unexplained locking of doors and mysterious writing and images. Bonner’s son, Allen “Duke” Bonner had died as a young man in 1944, and accounts of hauntings also include his spectral presence. Stories of Ladell’s ghostly haunting emerged shortly after her death, and it is most likely that legends connected with Duke emerged after the stories of Ladell were first told.
–Dr. Gregory Hansen, Professor of Folklore and English at Arkansas State University
Sources
“Arkansas Legend: The Gurdon Light.” Uploaded by KARK-TV, October 31, 2011. https://www.kark.com/about-us-2/arkansas-legend-the-gurdon-light/
“Arkansas Urban Legends” https://www.arkansas.com/articles/arkansas-urban-legends
Boggy Creek Monster Site, maintained by Lyle Blackburn http://www.foukemonster.net/index.htm
Brown, Alan. 2002. Haunted Places in the American South. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. Brown includes mention of the Allen House in this compilation of legends from the southern states.
Campfire Tales: Phantom Hitchhiker of Highway 365
Coon, Lisa. 2008. “The Tale of Ladell.” This ballad was composed and performed by Coon and can be heard on streaming on-line sites.
Copeland, Curtis. “Paranormal” State of the Ozarks http://stateoftheozarks.net/showcase/magazine/culture/paranormal/
“Gurdon Light,” Encyclopedia of Arkansas, June 16, 2023, https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/gurdon-light-1198/
Hibbard, Sharon. “Folklore: A Study and Tales from the Ozarks” an Honors Thesis written in 1975 at Ouachita Baptist University, now available digitally from Scholarly Commons. https://scholarlycommons.obu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1481&context=honors_theses
“Maple Hill Cemetery” https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/54904/maple-hill-cemetery
Mobley, Andrew. “’That’s no deer’: Fouke Monster legend haunts swamplands of southwest Arkansas with new alleged evidence” from KATV.com published October 23, 2023. https://katv.com/news/local/new-evidence-fouke-monster-haunts-southwest-arkansas-swamplands-boggy-creek-monster-bigfoot-sasquatch-the-legend-of-boggy-creek-movie-denny-roberts-miller-county-monster-mart-william-lunsford-crabtree-track-howl-recording-swamp-cryptid-1970s-sulphur-rive
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Myers, Arthur. 1985. The Ghostly Register. Chicago: Contemporary Books.
Packard, Christopher, “The Hoop Snake: America’s oldest terrestrial cryptid” https://www.christopherpackard.com/post/hoop-snake-america-s-oldest-terrestrial-cryptid
Polston, Mike. “William Murphy Loudermilk” from The Encyclopedia of Arkansas https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/william-murphy-loudermilk-2807/
Randolph, Vance. Ozark Superstitions Galena, MO. 1946.
Randolph, Vance. We Always Lie to Strangers ; Tall Tales from the Ozarks, published in New York by Columbia University Press in 1951.
Risker, Hannah. “Spooky Sites Around A-State” from A-State Herald, https://astatetheherald.com/2020/10/28/spooky-sites-around-a-state/
“Snawfus” Encyclopedia of Arkansas https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/snawfus-15128/
Spencer, Mark. 2012. A Haunted Love Story: The Ghosts of the Allen House. Woodbury, MN:Llewellyn Books.
“Supernatural State: https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2013/sep/28/the-supernatural-state/
Tesky, Magdalena. “Ghost Legends” from The Encyclopedia of Arkansas https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/ghost-legends-2651/
Thompson, Amy Michelle. “Fouke Monster” from Encyclopedia of Arkansas https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/fouke-monster-2212/
Turnbo, S.C. “A Hoop Snake,” published digitally at The Library. https://thelibrary.org/lochist/turnbo/V28/ST817.html
Unsolved Mysteries (2:12 to 13:08) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drzj1Ij46X4
Underwood, Edward L., Haunted Jonesboro from the History Press, August 2011.
Wilson, Carolyn. 1966. The Scent of Lilacs. New York: Ace Books.
