SAULSVILLE, W.Va. — While there aren’t as many reports of the Polk Hollow Monster today as there were in the 1970s and 1980s, there’s no doubt in the minds of some locals that the area surrounding the cave in Twin Falls Resort State Park is haunted.
State authorities have even created a hiking trail, the Poke Hollow Trail, to commemorate an encounter with the beast in the 1970s. The story was popularized by folklorist and West Virginia Senator David “Bugs” Stover, who often tells it on summer evenings at the park’s campground.
According to Stover, the creature is said to haunt a forested area that stretches along the borders of Boone, Raleigh and Wyoming counties in southern West Virginia. It encompasses 60 square miles of seemingly limitless backcountry that few people venture into.
Note that the trail name is misspelled: “Poke,” not “Polk.” Poke is a common abbreviation for pokeweed, a plant native to the Appalachian Mountains. However, the monster’s name is derived from Polk Gap, a low saddle in Polk Ridge named after an early settler in the region.
The following story from the booklet “Ghost Stories and Other Tales” gives the original legend as it is sometimes recited.
The Monster of Polk Hollow: The Sitting Tree
It was late fall 1942 and most of the leaves had fallen to the ground. Big Jim McMoore thought maybe he could get out his .22 and fire a box of grenades one last time. The next day he would leave to fight in the Great War and he prayed that “one last time” meant until he returned from the Pacific or Europe or wherever the Army had sent him.
He had shot at a few rocks, a few stumps, and even two or three old cans as he walked from his house up the valley to almost the top of Polk Gap. He had spent most of his nineteenth life hiking, shooting, and hunting in these valleys. His mind wandered back to his first squirrel, his first deer, and many pheasants. My goodness, they were tasty!
Jim began to look to his right and up the top, trying to see his perch tree, a large beech with a large horizontal branch about ten feet above the ground – a perfect place to sit and overlook the entire upper part of the valley and ridge. About twenty feet above the ground, its many other branches formed a perfect canopy. He had spent many hours hunting and daydreaming there, although it was difficult to get to his perch.
He smiled when he saw the tree about 50 meters above him and he started to walk in that direction when he saw someone standing there. His smile disappeared. Something was making him uneasy. He waved. He waved again and started to call out a greeting while a shiver ran down his spine and his hair stood on end. He realized why he felt uneasy.
Whoever – no, whatever – was standing by his tree, leaning against his sitting branch. His shoulders were over the branch and his arms were draped across it. It couldn’t be! Too far to tell. No, that’s how it stood. Lord have mercy! That makes it at least twelve feet tall, maybe fourteen.
He stood staring, unable to move as the evening light faded. The creature stared back and did not move. It seemed to be covered with hair – gray-white hair – except for its face, which looked like a human’s. The forest grew dark. The sky seemed to glow through the treetops. The creature stared, and Jim noticed that its eyes glowed faintly red.
His nerves snapped. He fired his last shots at the monster, aiming low, trying to scare it. He turned to go down the precipice, but ran as fast as he could. A quick glance back – it had moved! He caught a glimpse. The Polk Gap monster was pursuing him.
He ran down the valley, fear giving him speed. He stumbled and fell not once but many times, though he kept running. The darkness had almost surrounded him, and so had the thing. The noise it made was like a whirlwind in the trees. It was level with him now, and was sinking lower and lower from the top. Now it was even closer to the valley. If it reached the mouth before him, he would be trapped.
Finally it was getting lighter. He was out of the trees. His house was only a long walk away. The noise was overwhelming. He jumped the fence and made it to the porch, but the door wouldn’t open. He felt and heard his heart pounding and he heard silence. Everything was quiet. No creature was tearing down his fence. Nothing! He turned slowly. There it was. It was standing at the edge of the trees. They looked into each other’s eyes. The creature slowly disappeared back into the trees. Jim stared at the mouth of the scream until everything was dark.
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