Somewhere between the edge of shadows and the corner of your eye hides a land of hidden beasts.

If you have ever felt your blood run cold from a blur of movement in the furthest reaches of your sight, you might have caught of glimpse of its home.

More than 50 years ago, one such shy creature crept from that land — the depths of man’s fears — and was cast into the light.

The year was 1964. The place was Sister Lakes, Michigan, a tiny resort community just outside of Dowagiac. The beast was the Dewey Lake Monster.

 

Rise of the Dewey Lake Monster

Purported to have been a nightmarish combination of gorilla, bear and cat, the horrific misfit would have fit in on the Island of Doctor Moreau. Glimpses of the monster had been reported before 1964, but monster-mania didn’t start in earnest until “about 10 reputable persons,” started seeing the creature, according to a UPI article from June 11 of that year.

Mrs. John Utrup, of Dewey Lake, told sheriff’s deputies that she was chased into her home on June 9 by the creature, but her dogs scared it off. The monster, she said, stood 9 feet tall and weighed 500 pounds — more or less — with black hair up to its neck and glowing eyes. Two days later, at 9:15 a.m., three young girls — Joyce Smith, 13, Patsy, 12, and Gail Clayton, 13 — came face-to-face with the creature on a wooded road. Joyce fainted, Gail was too far away to see anything, and Patsy said the creature looked like a bear. The monster fled without incident.

“I view it more as a ‘rural legend’ that we’ve got out here,” said Steve Arseneau, director of the Dowagiac Area History Museum. “Perhaps some people saw something, and their imaginations got the better of them.”

Regardless, 200 people armed with shotguns, high-powered rifles, baseball bats and tire irons descended on Sister Lakes in short order.

“It was a different time and place,” Arseneau said. “People weren’t carrying around guns at that time. … in that time period people didn’t openly carry guns. So I think it was quite a bit jarring for the local law enforcement.”

In fact, despite the best effort of police to search the surrounding woods for signs of the beast, it was all they could do to manage the hellacious traffic and the sudden appearance of armed tourists.

But it wasn’t just tourists who seemed to fall under the spell of the mysterious creature. Enterprising locals sold monster “getaway” gas, monster burgers and monster hunting kits — replete with a net, flashlight, squirt gun, a mallet and a stake.

Who ever heard of monster hunting without a mallet and stake?

In nearby St. Joseph, beer distributor Jack Hadley put up a $1,000 reward for the live capture of the monster, which is about $7,742.16 in 2016 bucks.

But, Cass County Sheriff Robert Dool managed to convince Hadley of reason, and he removed the bounty on the monster before anyone was hurt, according to a UPI article in the Albuquerque (New Mexico) Journal.

Fear was growing in the community, which perhaps captured succinctly in the article by deputy Andy Chavous.

“I’d feel safer if it was just me and the monster,” he said.

 

Nowhere to be seen

By the time the weekend was over, sightings of the monster disappeared into thin air. Besides speaking with deputies, those who claimed to have had direct sight of the creature were remarkably reluctant to talk about it with anyone else.

Before long, tourist levels returned to normal, as did the amount of visible monster hunting weapons. But rumors persisted.

Christine Northrup, Miss Dowagiac 1965, heard rumors at school about the monster. She recalled being sequestered in a motel with a heavy police presence when she traveled to Benton Harbor for pre-Blossomtime Parade festivities.

“It was a regular motel, where you have the outdoor entrances to the rooms. We were all on the second level, and they had it totally closed off and they had police guards there,” she said. “[Blossomtime officials] instructed us, in the beginning, that we were not to leave our rooms alone … and we could not leave that level without one of the police escorts.”

Northrup also recalled quiet murmurs from people around town.

“There was some conversation [with officials] about some kind of unidentified remains that were found out by the lakes,” she said. “There was some kind of discovery that prompted the officials of the Blossomtime parade to mention [the remains] to us, and to suggest that we be cautious.”

If the beast had returned, it was keeping a low profile.

“[The monster] was part of our life at the time,” Northrup said. “Because it was going on, and it was close. And people were scared.”

 

Return of the Dewey Lake Monster

Joe Morford, formerly of Dowagiac, is a director living in Los Angeles who wants to make a fictionalized film about the monster called “Do Not Go Down to Dewey Lake.”

Surprisingly, he never heard about the monster while he was living in town. To Morford, the secrecy of the monster and the veracity of its story is its greatest allure.

“People weren’t looking for publicity [with the monster],” he said. “What I found fascinating was that people that witnessed this didn’t want to talk about it.

“It had just happened, and we should’ve known about it, but we were all ignorant. There were real stories, real quotes.”

Morford wants that authenticity translated into the film. He’s hoping to use some local locations as well as some local cast and crew. Importantly, he wants to physically recreate the monster with animatronics to make it feel organic. He hopes to release the film in October 2018.

Last summer, the town began to re-embrace the myth of the monster by theming the Dewey Lake Boat Parade after the monster. Morford hopes more parades and more traditions relating to the monster arise.

“If it’s your history, you should embrace it,” he said.

With time, memories of the monster have faded from rumor into legend. The truth of the monster may never be known.

Who or what was the beast? How could it be explained? Who could explain it? Who would believe it?

“Whether you believe in [the monster] or not is irrelevant,” Morford said. “It was a thing.”

For now, at least, the creature has returned to its life between the edge of shadows and the corner of your eye.