Aug 1

Caddo Critter

Caddo is a small community located approximately 14 miles east of Breckenridge on Hwy 180. Today, it is a veritable ghost town, a community that has fallen, like so many other small towns, to the “Old Man Interstate” and the mass migration to suburbia over the years. It was never very large, and during the year 2000 it consisted of only 40 souls. The industry in the region is mainly ranches and farms. This bears some importance at the end if this article.

That means it is downright deserted out there, to you city folk.

charlie-gant

Charlie Gantt, 72 and a local rancher, states that he shot at the ape 9 or 10 times with his .22lr revolver. The ape departed the area of his home that night, on July 18th, 1964.

Unclear, but common sense says before, is the report by little Gene Couch,9, who reported seeing the ape while walking to a fishing spot on that same day. His mother also stated that “something” had been fighting with the dogs at night. Again, its unclear, but seems reasonable to assume she is referring to the night before or even earlier to these events.

gene-couch

Something had the residents all worked up. You can read below the articles that describe the pandemonium that this caused the little community.

 

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6 Responses to “Caddo Critter”

    • Gail W

      Steven, I know the area around Caddo pretty well. I’m in Comanche County about 70 miles south of there. The reason I bring this up is that during the early 90’s I attended a small Methodist church between Comanche and Gorman Texas where my Dad was the Minister. It was a fairly small congregation of older people who lived in the area around the church. One Sunday an elderly woman, they called her Mrs Alice, after church told my dad that there was some (and her words) black people she would see in the woods out her kitchen window some evenings and they were coming up at her house and taking things from her garden. The reason she even brought it up was she was concerned because she thought they were homeless and dirt poor because they had left barefoot prints in her garden. Her neighbor who lived about a half mile from her told my Dad he would look into it, Not long after that, my Dad left that church for another in Gorman, so I never did hear anything else on that and I know she did pass away not long after that. The other strange thing that happened around the same time, there was this old man who lived not far from Mrs Alice. Now he was not a real friendly person and had the reputation of being very racist. Story goes that he had called Sheriff’s Department and told them that a bunch of “blacks” (did not use that word) had been trying to break into his barn and if they didn’t do something about it, he would shoot them if they came back. This was in the early 90’s and if anyone knows the reputation of Comanche County, the possibility of having African Americans living around that area at that time was slim to none. I have heard stories like these for years but nobody ever comes forward officially because they don’t want to be known as a kook or crazy.

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