(energetic rock music) - It was on a Saturday morning.

I was, I think, 12 years old at the time.

One of my buddies came over, and said, "Hop on your bike.

"Somebody said they saw Bigfoot."

There were still phones back then, you know, and people were calling people, calling people, calling people.

And next thing you know, everybody and their brother that was a conspiracy theorist was out here looking for Bigfoot.

There was five of us that rode our bikes down here, and the cars were lined up.

Hundreds of cars, hundreds of people, everybody on this road at that time had no business being here, and everybody that was parked along the road was part of the zoo, and it was a zoo that day.

And we didn't believe it at all.

We were laughing about grown adults walking through the woods, bringing their hunting dogs, trying to find... I don't think it was ever named Cole Street Monster, but everybody thought it was Bigfoot.

Sometime around lunchtime, I believe, an elderly gentleman was up in these woods.

He took the gun, and he was up actively, actively hunting Bigfoot.

We weren't really close at that point, but we were close enough to hear the gunshot.

And we ran over where all the hubbub was going, and we were here when they opened the back of the ambulance and threw him in and took him off to the hospital.

He survived.

(bright percussion music) (bright energetic rock music) Accidentally having a gun discharge and hurting himself escalated the problem that we had with all the people in the woods, and the police were here.

And at that point, that's when the cops started sending people home.

Back then, we didn't have cellphones.

We didn't have video games, nothing, and getting outside and doing something weird like that wasn't so uncommon.

And we knew in our hearts of hearts that nobody was going to find anything.

We were hoping that it may be true, but we knew it wasn't.

The young man that started it all recanted it later, which takes the people that believe that this happened is the people that just want to believe it.

- When you have a really good story, and if you're a very good storyteller, you can convince people of things that never happened.

So in the early '70s, a young man had claimed that he had seen essentially a Bigfoot type creature, and to have one locally, you are going to have people who are interested.

You are going to have people who run to go look.

That's why it persists.

That's why haunted stories exist.

That's why haunted cemeteries exist, because people, they want to be able to say, "Oh, I had that happen too."

It really is a fear of missing out, that you weren't part of this legend that you grew up around.

And even when it's retracted, you're going to have people now who will hear a very natural thing happening, like a tree branch that cracks and think, "Oh, no, the Cole Hollow Monster is nearby, "and I got to get going."

While it was refuted, there is always going to be a person that says, "Well, you know, after I heard that, "I think I heard this."

And whether it's false memories or kids playing around, there's always going to be somebody who will believe.

(bright rock music continues) - This story's been going on for 55 or 57 years.

I'm impressed.

I just wish that people's energy would be more toward what's really happened in this area.

Cole Street is spelled not C-O-A-L, it's spelled C-O-L-E, because this street was named after Captain Cole.

- If you look at everything that Almiran Cole did, the achievements he had, when you have a documented truth, it is documented that Almiran Cole came to Peoria in 1835.

It is documented that he started the first distillery.

What is not documented is the Cole Hollow Monster.

I think that Almiran Cole would have wanted people to remember his name.

I think he would have wanted people to know what he did for Peoria.

- It's a cool story.

It's a harmless story.

It uses people's imaginations, what could be and couldn't be.

- You can start with a story about a farmer, and by the time it goes through the game of telephone, it gets to 10 people later, and you have "A knight who slew a fire-breathing dragon!"

There is a certain chemical reaction that happens in your brain when you tell a really good story and people react, and you want to make it better every time.

A good story will last centuries.

A great story will last forever.

(bright rock music fades)