Any collection of recollections about growing up in Thorntown, IN, absolutely must begin with the story about the Thorntown gorilla. This story actually made national news! It was many decades before one of the participants, Asher Cones, finally came forward to confess:
Asher Cones and the Thorntown Gorilla.
I am going to tell you the true story of a practical joke that got
clear out of hand. This was picked up by UPI and AP and made headlines
in papers all over the U.S. I have articles out of Detroit, Chicago and
New York papers. Most of you are familiar with it, but I am sure a lot
of you do not know the true story, as there were so many different
versions that you would not have known what to believe if you had heard
it.
The Thorntown Gorilla was conceived by accident. That in itself is not
unusual. Happens every day, but this one grew up to be quite a little
monster.
George Coffman, Homer Birge and myself cooked up the idea of the
gorilla. ( We meant for it to be a bear but they said it was a gorilla.
We were in no position to argue the point, so a gorilla it was.) The
purpose of doing this was to scare Gobby Jones off Sugar Creek. He spent
every spare second of his time fishing and te told quite a few fish
stories. Needless to say, after encountering the gorilla twice he quit
fishing for good. (He was the one who named it a gorilla.)
Homer did our welding for us and one day while I was waiting for him to
do some welding we got to talking about how we could stop Gobby's big
fish stories. ( Gobby worked for us at the time.) We decided some animal
would be the best and decided to make a bear. A gorilla was so far
fetched we didn't even think of it.
Homer and his wife Pearl made the suit. It wouldn't stand close
inspection by a long shot, but then no one ever stayed long enough to
inspect it. Homer had an old horse hair coat his father had worn. But,
one was not enough. We remembered that Bill Sprong used to wear one like
it. I went and saw him and finally bought it for $10. He never asked
why I wanted it. I guess he was so excited about getting $10 for a horse
hair coat in the middle of the summer that he didn't care. We thought
later that the coat might be our weak point when the papers mentioned it
might be someone in a fur coat, but I guess Bill never connected the
coat and gorilla together....or at least I never heard it mentioned. The
head was made over a wire frame with a couple tiger eyes so they would
shine at night. We cut a couple slits below the eyes so we could see. We
made a set of tin teeth and painted them white. You set it over your
head and held it in place with one hand so you could see. The rest was
the 2 coats sewn over a pair of coveralls.
To try it out Homer had on the suit in a prearranged spot and George
guided Gobby to it. When Homer raised up in broad daylight it scared
Gobby so bad that he climbed a bank that he normally could not have
climbed, losing his billfold in the deal. ( Later when Homer heard that
Gobby was in the hospital dying he went to the hospital and confessed
his story. Gobby was having none of it and told Homer " I know what I
saw and I saw a gorilla. It wasn't someone dressed up!" )
We thought if it looked that good in the daylight it would probably
look real spooky in car lights. To try it out, I let Homer out at the
turn that was then known as Barker's Pit. I went down the road and
turned around and came back. When he walked in front of me, even though I
was expecting him, it almost made my hair stand on end. ( At that time I
had hair.) We tried it a couple times in car lights
and got instant results.
I only wore it a couple of times. I wore it once at Barker's Pit. Homer
and George brought Amos Copas and someone else to me in a boat. (under
the pretense of fishing.) They didn't believe the story about them
seeing the gorilla, but when we got through with them they did. They
moved over close to the bank where they knew I was and turned the light
on me while I shook a small tree. They had to hold poor 'ole Amo in the
boat to keep him from jumping out and he couldn't swim!! ( I wish I was
big enough to shake a tree as big as the Lebanon Reporter said it was.
It was actually only about 2 inches in width.)
Homer and George stated they had seen the gorilla a couple of times but
I stayed clear out of the picture and confined myself to razzing anyone
who claimed to had seen it.
When we heard of someone who said they didn't believe it we would use
them as our next victim and make a believer out of them. We done that a
couple times before having our only close call. (We almost got caught.)
We saw Rufe Coffman in town and decided to give him the cure, as he had
been talking too much. Rufe lived back the lane and to the left after
crossing the County Line Bridge west of Dunbar Park. I parked my car in
the drive north of where Wilbur Bowen was building his new house and we
both went down to wait for Rufe. Homer was to cross the road just as
Rufe was turning into his drive in his old Ford Fairlane. Anyway, we
were sure it was him getting ready to cross the bridge. At the moment he
was suppose to turn Homer started walking across the road. Instead of
turning, the car came on straight and Homer had to move fast to get out
of the way. Instead of Rufe Coffman we found out later it was Nina
Larsh. ( The account in the paper said the gorilla jumped over the fence
head first, which he did. But, actually he fell over the fence about 18
inches high and really took a nasty spill. ) We went through the woods,
back to the car and drove away. Afterwards we heard that Nina had
stopped at Harry Wells and that he had someone else come down there.
They saw a car in the drive way and knew the make and color, but by the
time he went to the bridge and back the car was gone. (I sure am glad it
was.) If we had stayed there we would have been caught like a rat in a
trap. Needless to say, that is the last time we ever done that.
The few times after that when we let it be seen we used different
tactics. I'd plant Homer as the victim was on their way home. Then when
they left town I would pass them and stay about a 1/4 mile ahead of
them. I would blink my lights so Homer would know they were in the next
car. We always planned it so I could turn off and turn around as soon as
they passed. I would pick him up and we would be gone in about 30
seconds. The thing that would of fouled us up was if someone would have
stopped, but they stomped on the gas instead. I can't say I blame them!
We had it fixed up where I would meet him if someone did stop but we
never had to use it.
When they started gorilla drives ( alot of you remember that), and
flying over Sugar Creek with air planes I quit. George had quit quite a
bit before that. Homer let it be seen a couple times on his own until I
took him a wooden box to nail it in and read him the riot act. We nailed
it in the box and he put it in his attic. As far as I know it stayed
there until after his wife Pearl died. After that I understand that he
gave it to one of Roy Martin's boys. They did put it on once that I know
of. They went to the
home of an elderly couple. The woman was facing a window in her rocking
chair and looked out the window as one of the boys raised up in the
suit. It scared the woman so much she went over backwards in the chair.
After that the gorilla was left to die.
The reason why we kept the story quiet so long was because some people
were pretty mad about it. ( The sore heads.) For instance, Clarance
Martin lost a couple weeks work because his wife wouldn't let him leave
her home alone.
We understand why the gorilla had to die.
I don't think, but maybe with an exception or two, that we always knew
who we were showing it to. (Asher had to tell his wife Wilma about the
gorilla. Not sure what she thought about it. Probably a good thing it's
not in print.) I have a scrap book with some clippings in it but I have
misplaced a big envelope with a bunch of clippings from out of town
papers. I didn't know there were so many people who made a business of
selling clippings. Homer Birge and George Coffman would get the clipping
offers because their names were mentioned several times. My name was
never in any of the papers. Homer would get calls from papers in New
York, California, Detroit and several other papers.
Thank you for the memories..
