My first knowledge of Squatch

Back in the early fifties my grandmother worked for a construction company that was building roads up through the Sierra Nevada mountains heading north up into Oregon. My mother and her brother were young but the events that happened will never leave her memory.

My grandmother would make trips up to see the crews and take supplies every other week or so. On a few occasions my mother and uncle would go with her. The area was very remote and the nearest town was 40 plus miles on a road under construction and hundreds of miles from their office and construction equipment yard.

My mother had heard the adults talking about vandalism up at the construction site but did not understand what exactly what was being said but that was soon to change.

On one of the trips up to the area my grandmother reluctantly had to take my mother and her brother. My mother remembers her being very nervous and trying very hard to find somewhere for them to stay. When everything fell through and she was out of time and options she loaded them into the truck and headed up the mountain.

My mother remembers being excited, she loved the mountains and she loved the adventure but her mother was much more stressed then normal on this trip.

The drive up the mountain was uneventful. When they arrived at the camp for the construction workers right away my mother noticed that everyone had their tents setup right in the middle of the clearing that will one day be a major road. In the past some of the men would have their camp setup off in the trees and space between them and the other men. Not this time, tents were right next to each other with heavy equipment along the outsides like a fence.

She also noticed that some of the men were wearing guns and had rifles leaning against the outside walls of their tents. Most men back then had guns with them because of the remoteness and they would sometime hunt for food but they did not carry them unless they were expecting problems.

The first day went fine, my grandmother would not let my mother and her brother venture out away from the compound they had built from tents and machinery but they managed to have a fun time exploring where they could.

That night just before being sent to bed she remembers the adults talking about who would be on watch during the night and keep the fires burning. They had never had anyone o watch before and she was confused as to why someone needed to stay up all night.

She does not know what time it was but she felt like she had been asleep for quite some time before being awakened. There were men running, lots of yelling, a gun shot or two. My grandmother stuck her head in the tent and told them to not come out for any reason until she or one of them men came to get them. On top of all of the noise, she could hear screams or howls. My mother had spent a lot of time in the wilderness, she was very familiar with the noises from the forest and in her words, “this noise was not from the forest I knew”. The commotion went on for what seemed like hours, through the side of the tent from the camp fires her and her brother would see the shadows of men running by with rifles in their hands, some had pistoles. All were yelling like they were scared. When the excitement died down my mother and her brother fell asleep till morning.

When my grandmother went in the tent and woke them for breakfast, my mother remembers a lot of activity going on, as she walked through the camp all seemed normal in the camp. After breakfast her and her brother ventured out to where a bunch of the men were standing looking out into the forest. Many yards out in the forest there were 55-gallon drums filled with fuel and oil. They had been picked up and carried to the edge of the clearing and thrown. Some where many feet up in trees others piled on top of one another and crushed from the weight of the other barrels landing on them. As the two of them followed my grandmother and some of the men, they saw tractors and other machines tipped over or parts broken off. They stopped and starred at the size of the prints left in the soft dirt. She was pretty young at this time so her memory of how big the print was might be a little off but she does remember one of the men putting his foot inside the print and it was much larger than his boot.

Not long after they walked around the camp, the owner of the company told my grandmother to get the kids and get off of the mountain. He even sent a few men and guns in a truck to follow them down to make sure they did not have any issues.

My grandmother never spoke of this and if my mother or uncle would bring it up they would get in trouble. I have heard this story since I was little, it has never changed, always the same, you can sense the fear in my mother’s voice as she describes the events and what she saw.

#squatchkill #squatchutah #squatch