DATE:      Fall 72
 

TIME:      Not Given
 

LOCATION:   Lane Co. Oregon off of Sharps Creek road, SE of Cottage Grove OR.
                 In the old Bohemia Mining District; an area of abandoned gold mines
                 and cabins dating to the 1920s.
 

TERRAIN:   Wooded,  heavily wooded hillside, probably BLM land
 

OBSERVED:Dave M is a coworker in his early 50s who now lives in Springfield OR. Back in the early 70s he was a member of the Free Souls motorcycle "club". In the summer of 72 a group of bikers refurbished an old broken down mining cabin in the Bohemia District. It was in a very remote thickly forested area reached only after a mile and a half bushwack up a creek from the logging road which parallels Sharps Creek. There is no road into it and supplies had to be brought in on foot.The area is honeycombed with abandoned mineshafts and the nearest human habitations are dozens of miles away.It took them most of the summer to rebuild the cabin and they did  good job, even packing in a woodstove.After it was complete, Dave, his wife and another couple decided to spend the night, the first time any of them had stayed over night at the cabin.

Late that first night all hell broke loose.They first heard very heavy pounding on the outside walls of he cabin.  Then there was pounding on the  front door which went on for several minutes. Fearing that the door would burst open, the two couples retreated to the loft and pulled the ladder up after them. The two men aimed rifles at the door intending to shoot whoever burst thru. Finally the pounding stopped but a short time later they could hear sounds of their woodshed being torn apart. The woodshed was about 100 ft from the cabin. Finally those sounds ceased but they remained up for the rest of the night discussing what they believed had been a bear attack. In the morning they found the woodshed totally destroyed, firewood strewn all over, but what was really curious was that two large size chain saws had been thrown or carried off into the forest and were found a couple of hundred feet from the cabin. Pretty strange behavior for a bear.

Soon after , the Forest Service discovered the cabin and evicted the bikers. The cabin was razed. Since there are many abandoned mineshafts in the area, and I've read that BF are thought to make abodes of such places,perhaps Dave and his friends were merely recieving a visit from the local welcome wagon.  Maybe the old residents objected to their new neighbors, you know what humans do to property values.  Seriously, this area, with its abandoned mines might be good place for someone, with more guts then I've got, to go looking for BF.
 

Activities of Witness:   Staying overnight in secluded cabin, near several abandoned mine shafts.

Description of Creature:

Other Notes: Over the years I've lived in Oregon, I've heard many bigfoot tales. I've also had a couple of strange possible BF related experiences myself. Recently, after discovering this and other Bigfoot web sites,I decided to ask friends, family and coworkers if they had had or knew of someone who had had possible BF related experiences. Those I asked were mostly experienced outdoorsmen or had lived in small towns or rural areas of Oregon.  Surprisingly, over 50% of those asked had a story to relate and I was able to gather 24 accounts of which nine were
actual sightings of a BF.As time permits, I will relate some of the more interesting accounts.

Other Other Notes: Here in Western Oregon there are lots of reports.