Monroeville police investigated panther reports in June 1982

I was looking through some old newspapers the other day and ran across an unusual story that appeared on the front page of the July 1, 1982 edition of The Monroe Journal. The headline read, “Officers hunt panther in Pineville Road area,” and the article was written by Peggy Hoomes, who many of us now know as Peggy Jaye.

According to that story, Monroeville police and state conservation officers were investigating reports that a panther had been seen on Pineville Road, near the north end of the Highway 21 Bypass. Those familiar with Monroeville will know that Pineville Road runs from the downtown square, past the library, north towards Beatrice (which used to be called Pineville). The Highway 21 Bypass intersects Pineville Road about seven-tenths of a mile from the downtown square.

In the article, Monroeville Police Chief Charles Colbert said that W.H. Harris, who lived on Pineville Road, contacted the police on Mon., June 28, to report that he’d found the remains of several dogs over the previous few weeks in his yard. Harris had also found scratches and places where bark had been bitten off nearby trees.

Harris told The Journal on Wed., June 30, that he first thought the animal was a bear, so he and his neighbor, Scott Dees, had placed bait in a tree in hopes of catching the creature. They sat up late on the night of June 28, but they were unable to catch the animal.

On Tues., June 29, State Conservation Officers Bill Boone and Alan Andress arrived on the scene to investigate. They told Harris that the animal seemed to be a cougar or panther. Later that afternoon, several witnesses in the area reported seeing a panther, describing it as a large black cat, weighing 40 to 50 pounds.

Police were called out to investigate and as of the morning of June 30, the animal was still being hunted. Officers also continued to patrol the area, particularly at night, Colbert said. Colbert noted that there had been no reports of the panther bothering humans, but he advised persons in the area to be cautious.

Stories of this type from our neck of the woods are not unheard of. The oldest panther story that I’ve been able to find in old Monroe Journals was in the June 16, 1879 edition. Published under the headline, “Panther Story,” that article said that Mr. Jno. Randalson was hunting on Limestone Creek on June 13 when he suddenly encountered a “strange looking wild animal which he supposed to be a panther.”

Randalson and his dog gave chase and eventually treed the large cat. “When almost immediately under a large tree near his dog, he heard a terrible and startling noise above him, and looking in the direction from which it came, he saw the animal jumping from the tree to the ground in the opposite direction from him, and it disappeared into the swamp. This is supposed to be a panther, or wild animal of some other kind, which was seen and heard near Claiborne some time ago.”

While I have never personally seen or heard a panther, over the years I’ve talked with many people who have. State officials nowadays generally deny that there are any large cats in the state, but many trustworthy people say that they have seen them. In the end, I’d like to hear from anyone in the reading audience who has a “Panther Story” they would like to share.