Cold Case Files: A Bigfoot tale from Mayes County has become a family legend that has lasted four decades

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In the wide, rural expanse of Mayes County, where Spavinaw Creek winds through dense brush and the county has an estimated 350,000 uninhabited acres, a quiet family outing in 1983 turned into a story that still raises eyebrows decades later.

The Spavinaw Dam and its 55-mile gravity-flow pipeline, completed in the mid-1920s, represented a major engineering feat at the time. But long before and after the infrastructure arrived, these remote woodlands have been the setting for occasional strange reports -- including claims of an unknown, large, hairy creature roaming the area.

One such account comes from a local family who has asked to remain mostly anonymous. The father, referred to here as John Smith, a military veteran and avid hunter, along with his wife and their three young children were enjoying a day in nature near Spavinaw Creek in the summer of 1983.

According to the family, one of the children first spotted what they initially thought was a bear on a nearby ridge, roughly 150 yards away. As they watched, it became clear the creature was moving in a deliberate, powerful bipedal, cautious manner. The family observed it for several minutes.

The mother and children returned to their truck for safety. John Smith, however, decided to get a closer look. He tracked the animal at an angle through the brush, closing the distance to approximately 75 yards. At that point, the creature appeared to notice him. Startled, it turned and walked northwest into denser vegetation. It did not flee in fear or panic --instead, it moved away with calm, measured strides, disappearing from view.

Smith, now in his early seventies, described the animal as standing approximately 6 feet 8 inches to 7 feet tall when it shifted posture. It was covered in matted dark brown fur over nearly its entire body, except for its face and hands. He emphasized it did not behave like a typical bear or any other known wildlife in the region. As a military veteran and lifelong hunter who had spent countless hours in these woods, Smith later said the creature was simply unlike anything he had ever seen.

Later that same day, the family stopped at a small mom-and-pop convenience store and gas station just outside the community of Spavinaw. There, they shared their experience with a local game warden who happened to be fueling up his truck.

The warden listened with a skeptical, almost amused expression. Leaning against his vehicle with his arms crossed, he shook his head slowly as John described the height, the dark matted fur, and the creature’s calm, upright walk.

“Boys, that sounds like a tall tale if I ever heard one,” the warden said with a chuckle. “We got black bears around here, sure, but nothing walkin’ on two legs like a man.”

His incredulous attitude was clear -- he seemed more entertained than concerned, politely taking down a few notes but offering little else besides a friendly warning not to “spook the locals with Bigfoot stories.”

Word spread quickly in the tight-knit community anyway.

“It caused quite a stir for a few days,” John Smith recalled, “but the reports were met with amusement more than anything else.”

The excitement was short-lived. The children faced teasing at school, and the family noticed odd looks at church. After a brief period of local gossip, they chose to let the story fade.

“We didn’t want the kids being made fun of, and people were looking at us funny,” Smith said. “So we let it go.”

This 1983 encounter is not isolated. Mayes County and surrounding areas in northeast Oklahoma have a modest but persistent history of similar sightings, according to databases like the BFRO. Reports from the Spavinaw and Eucha areas have included unusual vocalizations, large footprints, and brief visual encounters near creeks and wooded ridges.

Skeptics often attribute such sightings to misidentified black bears, feral hogs, or local folklore. Proponents point to the consistency of descriptions across decades -- a tall, upright-walking figure with matted dark fur-- and the remote, heavily forested terrain ideal for an undiscovered or elusive animal.

Whether the 1983 sighting was a bear, a hoax, or something more extraordinary remains unknown. The Smith family never pursued publicity and stands by their account as a genuine, unexplained experience.

The hills and creek bottoms around Spavinaw remain largely unchanged since that day — quiet, beautiful, and just wild enough to make a person wonder what might still be wandering through the brush when no one is watching.