Theodore Roosevelt and The Bigfoot Tale

 

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Roosevelt the.Badlands hunter By George Grantham Bain - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3a24199.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons: Licensing., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13275181

Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, was a passionate naturalist and outdoor enthusiast with a deep fascination for wildlife and wilderness areas. While there is no direct evidence suggesting Roosevelt personally encountered Bigfoot, he documented an intriguing narrative in his publication "The Wilderness Hunter" (1893). Here's a comprehensive examination of his exploration of the Bigfoot legend:

Background

Roosevelt demonstrated an adventurous nature and profound connection to nature from an early age. His youth was spent exploring wilderness areas, engaging in hunting expeditions, and conducting wildlife studies. These experiences provided material for several books he wrote, including "The Wilderness Hunter."

The Goblin Story

Within "The Wilderness Hunter," Roosevelt shares an account from an elderly mountain hunter called Bauman. The hunter described an unsettling encounter with a mysterious being in the Bitterroot Mountains along the Idaho-Montana border. Bauman reported that he and his trapping companion heard unusual noises and discovered strange footprints in the area. Tragically, Bauman later found his partner deceased, apparently killed by a large, unidentified creature.

Roosevelt's Interpretation

While Roosevelt found Bauman's tale compelling, he maintained skepticism. He observed that frontier dwellers typically avoided superstitious beliefs, attributing such stories to contemporary folklore and imagination. Nevertheless, he recognized wilderness environments could inspire mysterious sensations and fear, leading to beliefs in supernatural entities.

By Adam Cuerden - This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID ppmsca.35645.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=144415411

Cultural Impact

Roosevelt's documentation of Bauman's experience represents one of America's earliest recorded accounts of a Bigfoot-like creature in literature. Though Roosevelt never claimed personal encounters with Bigfoot, his narrative contributed significantly to the creature's growing mystique.

Conclusion

While Theodore Roosevelt never directly encountered Bigfoot, his storytelling abilities and interest in wilderness legends helped popularize the mythology. His account remains a significant piece of early Bigfoot folklore, blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

Bear thought to be made by Morris Michtom in the early 1900s; donated to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., United States, by Theodore Roosevelt's grandson Kermit Roosevelt Jr. in 1964

By Smithsonian Museum of Natural History - https://www.flickr.com/photos/23165290@N00/7237653442/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41208714

From Wikipedia - The teddy bear comes from Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, who was often referred to as "Teddy, (a nickname he loathed). The name originated from an incident on a bear-hunting trip in the U.S. state of Mississippi in November 1902, to which Roosevelt was invited by Andrew H. Longino, the 35th governor of Mississippi. There were several other hunters competing, including LeRoy Percy, and most of them had already killed an animal. A party of Roosevelt's attendants, led by freedman Holt Collier cornered, clubbed, and tied an American black bear to a willow tree after a long and exhausting chase with hounds. They called Roosevelt to the site and suggested that he should shoot the bear dead, although Collier told Roosevelt not to shoot the bear while it was tied. Roosevelt refused to shoot the bear himself, deeming this unsportsmanlike, but instructed that the bear be killed to put it out of its misery, and it became the topic of a political cartoon by Clifford Berryman in The Washington Post on November 16, 1902.While the initial cartoon depicted an adult black bear lassoed by a handler and a disgusted Roosevelt, later issues of that and other Berryman cartoons made the bear smaller and cuter.

Candy store owner Morris Michtom saw the Berryman drawing of Roosevelt and was inspired to create a teddy bear. He created a small soft bear cub and put it in his candy-shop window at 404 Tompkins Avenue in New York City with a sign reading "Teddy's bear." The toys were an immediate success and the rest is history. 

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Margie Kay is a writer, speaker, remote viewer and podcast host. She is interested in all things paranormal. www.margiekay.com