Hay Springs, Nebraska, July 1923
J.A. Johnson and his friends came over the small rise in the ground, approaching Alkali (now Walgren) Lake, and Johnson nearly tripped over his own feet. There was a creature on the shore, just out of the shallow water. It was less than 20 yards away. The animal turned its head toward them, gave a hiss and slunk back into the water.
The friends had been camping near the lake, and although they’d heard the rumors swirling around town about the monster living in the lake, they never expected to see it. Johnson squinted through the falling darkness and shook his head as if to clear his eyesight and refocus the image.
Had he really just seen it: the creature that had been terrorizing tourists, fishermen and farmers for the last three years?
A distinct and unpleasant odor drifted to them.
“Did you see that?” asked one of his friends.
“What’s that awful smell?” the other added.
He was sure now that he really had seen it.
They went back to town and told everyone that the creature was still in the lake.
The reporter read the letter again. “Are you sure you want me to write this?” he asked.
“They’ve been seeing that thing for three years,” said his boss. “And his letter has a solid description, the best anyone has ever given us. Why don’t you go out to Hay Springs and talk to him?”
“Yes, sir.” The reporter sighed. He hadn’t meant to give himself more work, but he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to talk to the man. If nothing else, he could see if Mr. Johnson told the same story he’d set forth in the hand-written account that he’d sent to the Omaha World-Herald.
It took the reporter a long time to get to Hay Springs and find Mr. J.A. Johnson. With the man’s letter in his hand, he knocked on the door.
“Are you Mr. Johnson?” he asked when a man answered.
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Johnson. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m a reporter with the Herald. Can I ask you a few questions about the letter you sent us? About the animal you say you saw?”
“Well, sure you can,” said Mr. Johnson. “Come in.”
The reporter found himself seated in the living room. He perched on the edge of his seat and flipped to a fresh page in his notebook.
“What do you want to know?” asked Mr. Johnson. “I already wrote down everything.”
“I just want to clarify a few things.”
“Fire away, then.”
“Mr. Johnson,” said the reporter. “Can you tell me what it looked like?”
“Including its tail and head? It was probably about 40 feet long,” he explained. “I would say it was like an alligator, except its head was stubbier, and there seemed to be a projection that was like a horn between its eyes and nostrils.”
“Like an alligator, huh?” asked the reporter.
Mr. Johnson had repeated the same description he’d originally written in his letter.
“But it was heavier than an alligator—and not sluggish like an alligator.”
The reporter made a few notes. “What color was it?”
“It was a dull gray or brown. But it wasn’t that light out, so it was hard to distinguish its color.”
“Did it see you?”
“It lifted its head and made this peculiar hissing noise, and then it just disappeared, back into the water.”
“Interesting,” said the reporter, making another note. “Where do you think it came from?”
“My theory is that there is a subterranean passage from underground, and there are other monsters like it. But they only come up occasionally.”
“Uh-huh,” said the reporter, flipping his notebook closed. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Johnson. I think I got what I needed.”
“Sure thing,” said Mr. Johnson. “Is my story really going to be in the Herald?”
“It sure is, Mr. Johnson,” said the reporter as he left.
“What are we going to do?” asked the farmer. “It’s eating livestock.”
The Alliance Anglers’ club was holding a special meeting to discuss the mysterious lake creature.
“We’ve got to do something,” said another. “The tourists are complaining to the Hay Springs Chamber of Commerce! A few of them said they got chased by the lake monster, and the town has to do something to get rid of it.”
“It’s terrorizing swimmers,” said the owner of the restaurant closest to the lake. “If we don’t have tourists, we lose business, and times are tough enough as it is. Now that Johnson went off telling his tale to the papers …” His voice trailed off.
“We’ve already formed posses to look for it—twice,” said the club’s president. “What else can we do?”
“What would we have done if we’d caught it?” asked the farmer. “I went along on that last one, and even if we had found it, Johnson said it was 40 feet long. A shotgun ain’t no match for that.”
“We’ve got to do something,” the restaurant owner said again.
“What would work on a sea monster?” someone asked.
“Well, my grandaddy was a fisherman out East,” said another. “We could get ourselves a whaling gun and maybe a harpoon line.”
The others nodded.
“And then organize another posse. And this time, we need a dragnet,” said someone else.
The club’s president nodded. “All in favor of ordering a whaling gun and harpoon line?” he asked.
“Aye,” said the collective voice of the group.
“I’ll send in the mail order tomorrow,” he answered. “We’re going to catch that Alkali Lake monster.”
Despite their best efforts, the townspeople never captured the Alkali Lake monster. All reported sightings of the creature ceased after the 1920s, but the mystery will live on forever in the archives of the Omaha World-Herald and in the folklore passed down through the generations.