
The folklore of Fort Worth has long included whispers and rumors of the Lake Worth Goatman, a creature of legend dating back to a July 1969 sighting in what now stands as the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge. According to KHOU, the Goatman is reputed to be a 7-foot-tall, 350-pound entity, covered in hair with horns and scales, notable for feats like hurling a tire a remarkable distance and violently breaking large tree limbs. Rob Denkhaus, the manager of the Fort Worth Nature Center, discussed the specific locale, dense with brush and unchanged vegetation, where the Goatman's most iconic photograph was likely captured almost 50 years ago.
The legend has prompted not just curiosity but a flurry of alleged eyewitness accounts and a photograph that has served as the crux of the Goatman mystique, this specimen captured by a man named Allen Plaster was featured in a 2006 Star-Telegram interview, where Plaster later suggested the figure in his photo could be nothing more than a human prankster in disguise and yet, despite this, the said image has attained a degree of fame, especially within the circles of cryptid enthusiasts. The Fort Worth Nature Center plays into the folklore, accommodating the legend with themed activities such as the "Lake Worth Monster Bash," an event that occurs every four years. Cementing the creature's place in local culture, Sallie Ann Clarke penned "The Lake Worth Monster of Greer Island, Fort Worth, Texas," a short book that chronicled additional sightings and a narrative surrounding the creature’s elusive existence KHOU reports. Clarke's work casts a historical shadow over the region, fostering a narrative that has seen the Goatman evolve from a whispered myth to a figure of community identity and intrigue.
Despite the passage of time, the legend remains a fixture of the area’s cultural landscape, recent expeditions by locals like City Editor Kate, as shared by FTWToday, find intrigue in daylight treks around Greer Island, arguably not the prime time for spotting such nocturnal legends yet these excursions underscore the Monster’s pervasive, albeit elusive, presence in the lore of Lake Worth. As the Nature Center's Rob Denkhaus points out, the mystery is part of the center's allure, the Lake Worth Monster perhaps its most compelling, even if it's possibly over-the-top, with children and visitors frequently inquiring about the storied beast.